A Time for Wolves
by ofwingsandthings
Summary: Gendry just wants to be a normal guy. But unfortunately for him, he cannot escape his origins or his destiny, and when his father is murdered by a wild and uncontrollable werewolf, he knows what he has to do. Hunt it down and kill it. But what happens when the monster isn't a monster at all, but a feisty and impetuous teen girl running from monsters of her own? Art by jaimsstump!
1. Hunter

**I don't know what happened, but I could not unsee the Starks as werewolves, and then the Baratheons as werewolf hunters, and then this happened, haha. So new story! Not telling you anything about it more than I already have because… Well that'd be spoiling it, haha. **

"What am I doing here?" Gendry muttered under his breath to himself as he stared at the assortment of weapons lined on the walls of the sports shop. "I'm a mechanic."

It wasn't the first time he had muttered this to himself that night, and he had a sneaking suspicion it wouldn't be the last. '_Talking to yourself Gendry, the first sign of madness. You do know that saying that to yourself just reiterates the fact that you are out of your fucking mind, right?'_

"Shut up," he said aloud, and then nearly kicked himself in the shins, but thought better of it. Having an argument with himself he could handle, but a full on brawl? Well, then he wouldn't be the only one calling himself insane.

He sighed and shook his head, trying to clear it. There was a certain jitteriness crawling under his skin, a rush of adrenaline pumping through his veins and to his heart, which beat with a force and a swelling pulse. Every time his eyes alit on the crossbow, the pulse would jump violently. This was madness! Absolute insanity! Hadn't he promised himself a million times that he would never, ever, be drawn into this? And yet here he was, standing in the sports shop, the night darkening outside, and he knew, though he didn't want to admit it to himself, that he was about to break those promises.

"Fuck it."

Gritting his teeth, he reached out and snatched the crossbow off the wall. He didn't need to test it, he already knew it was what he wanted. Even if he wanted to escape himself, he couldn't. There were certain things that just couldn't been totally forgotten.

The man at the counter was lazily watching the game on the television, and Gendry had to clear his throat loudly to get his attention, and even then it was questionable.

"A crossbow, ehh?" the clerk said as he scanned it.

Gendry grunted.

"What are you going to do, kill a werewolf?" The clerk asked as he rang Gendry up.

"What?" Gendry almost shouted. The clerk gave him a weird look.

"It's a joke, mate," he said, shaking his head. Gendry thought he heard the word 'weirdo' pass from the clerks lips. "You know, cuz tonight's a full moon?"

"Is it?" Gendry said mildly, giving the clerk his card.

"So is this for hunting?" The clerk wanted to know. Apparently the game was not interesting enough to capture his full attention.

"No," Gendry said at once. He was _not_ a hunter, no matter what he was doing tonight. "Err... It's a gift."

"For who?" The clerk asked with raised eyebrows, putting the crossbow in a bag.

"My mum," Gendry said, snatching the bag and then leaving the store, ignoring the look of total disturbance on the clerks face. "Nosey bastard," Gendry mumbled under his breath as he zipped up his coat.

He got in his car and slammed the door shut, his heart hammering loudly. Turning on the radio to drown it out, he gunned the engine and zoomed out of the parking lot, his wheels screeching. He was late, he knew. The moon was already up, and that meant that time was running out, if he wasn't too late already. The thought made him grip the steering wheel.

Even though he didn't want to do this, even though he had tried to talk himself out of it at least a thousand times, Gendry knew he had to. He just couldn't bare the thought of his father's killer running free. Especially if that killer was a wolf. A Stark no less.

"Friends my ass," Gendry snarled under his breath as he raced off the freeway and towards the woods. No one was friends with one of _them_.

When his father had told him about who he was, and that the monsters under his bed were real, and that werewolves existed and were kind, Gendry had thought he needed to be locked up. He hadn't believed it, not for a second. And why should he? Gendry's father had seen him what, five times in his entire life? At the time, Gendry had thought it was all some sort of cruel joke, some sort of story his dad was making up to scare him, but then... Then there was that night. The night Gendry had almost been killed by a monster.

He was sixteen at the time, a loner with not very many friends. But he had his job, the one he still had working for Tobo Mott at his car shop, and that had kept him from falling into bad habits. Still, he was a teenager, and he wasn't so unpopular that he didn't get invited to the occasional party or two. Any chance to get wasted, in his opinion, was a chance worth taking. Alcohol numbed the anger he felt towards his father and the new family his father had replaced him and his mum with. There was a certain happiness, a dangerous happiness, that could be found within a bottle, so he would go, get plastered and forget, just for a night, what it was like to feel totally and utterly abandoned.

That night there had been a party up North. Gendry had bummed a ride there, but, almost an hour after he had arrived the girl's parents came home and busted the party. In the chaos, his ride had disappeared and, after his mum wouldn't pick up her phone, he was forced to walk home, through the woods no less. All the while he had tried to hitchhike, but oftentimes the cars just sped past him. Besides, who wanted to pick up a half-drunk teenager anyway?

He remembered that the night had been freezing. He only had a thin sweat shirt to keep him warm, and he pulled the hood over his head, his breath coming out in a thin mist. The forest had felt odd that night. Gendry dared not wander from the road, he wasn't that stupid, even drunk, but... The shadows seemed to move out of the corner of his eyes, and there was a certain chill that had nothing to do with the cold. He tried to tell himself over and over again that it was just the alcohol, but by then it had worn off. No... There was something else... Something...

There was a howl, a lone, broken howl that sent the hairs on the back of Gendry's neck on end. But there weren't any wolves in Westeros. Not for hundreds of years...

"Someone fucking show up," Gendry had said through gritted teeth, looking down the road behind him as he picked up his pace, his ears straining for a sound of tires. For a sound of anything really, other than the whistling silence of the woods and the sound of his shoes squelching against the wet ground.

There was a shifting of shadows, a dart, a flash. Gendry whipped around, ready to defend himself, but there was nothing there. Only shadows.

He heard something crunch, a low growl... And then he saw them, two icy blue glowing eyes out of the blackness-

Gendry screamed as it attacked him, knocking him over. It was huge, a gigantic beast with gray fur and long, sharp teeth, pulled back and ready. He could smell blood on its breath, and saw it too, stained against the white underside of its throat. It's eyes burned bright, ready to kill, its long claws digging into his shirt-

This was it, Gendry knew. This was where he died. He looked into the beasts eyes, glowing with a blood lust, and then, something shifted, and for a second, Gendry could swear that its eyes weren't icy blue, but gray eyes. Human eyes.

There was a snarl, and Gendry jerked over to see that there wasn't just one of them, but a whole pack, all bigger than the beast that held him down. He couldn't help it, he started to whimper.

The largest beast took a step forward and growled, a low, deep, threatening growl. '_This is it. I'm fucked.' _Gendry closed his eyes.

Then he opened them again, and to his shock, they were gone. The one with the blue eyes, all of them, disappeared into thin air, leaving nothing but a ringing silence. He might have imagined it all, were it not for the tiny little cuts on his chest, imprints of where the thing's claws had sunk into the tender flesh.

He hadn't gone home that night, but instead he had run, the entire way, to his uncle Renley's. If anyone could have explained it, if anyone could have listened and not thought he was crazy, it was Renley, his father's younger brother. He had been right.

"Werewolf," Renley had said casually, dabbing the cuts on Gendry's chest with alcohol.

"Don't be stupid," Gendry said, wincing. "Werewolves don't exist. They're just stuff made up to freak kids out and to put in TV shows."

"Oh really," Renley said drily. "What do you think attacked you then?"

"A wolf," Gendry said, but his voice faltered. "A really... Big... One."

"Look," Renley said, "do you honestly think that thing was really just a wolf?"

Gendry swallowed, hard, remembering the icy eyes and the teeth, and the enormity of the thing. It was like no wolf he had seen in any picture.

"Yes," he said... "No."

Renley sighed.

"I'm actually surprised you even saw it," he said. "the Starks are peaceful, even on a full moon."

"The Starks?" Gendry had heard the name before, but where...? "Holy shit, you don't mean-"

"Robert's best friend Ned Stark?" Renley said, putting bandaids on the cuts. "I'd have to say yes."

"No way," Gendry said, bolting to his feet. "Just... Just no way. You're putting me on."

"Gendry," Renley said firmly, "I didn't make you see what you saw in the woods. I didn't dig my nails into your chest. You saw it, you saw it with your own eyes."

"I was drunk," Gendry said, shaking his head. "I wasn't thinking-"

"Look!" Renley shouted, getting up and pushing into one of the cuts, causing Gendry to yelp. "Is this caused by alcohol? Hmmm? Is this just some hallucination? You don't want to believe it, but you do. You know it's true!"

Gendry watched as a trickle of blood ran down his chest. It was true, he knew. It was. But... But...

"Werewolves?" He asked.

"Nothing to joke about," Renley said darkly. "And don't think for a second that just because they let you live today doesn't mean that they're not dangerous. One of them attacked you, and you're lucky Ned was there to put a stop to it. The Starks have an incredible amount of self control for their kind, but even they slip. When there's a full moon, all bets are off."

"Is that why the little one attacked me?" Gendry asked, feeling stupid for saying 'little'. The word 'little' hardly applied to the thing that had knocked him to his feet. "Because of the full moon?"

"Probably," Renley said, finishing up with the bandaids. "And I have a feeling, from your description, that it was Arya, Ned's youngest daughter. This isn't the first time she's come dangerously close to violating the terms of peace."

"The terms of peace?" Gendry asked, lost.

"We used to hunt the Starks," Renley explained, "the Baratheons did, for a long time. And not only werewolves."

"Please tell me there aren't vampires," Gendry said at once. "I don't think I could live."

"Fine, I won't tell you," Renley said.

"Great," Gendry muttered sarcastically. "Are you serious? There are _vampires_? Ugh, I feel like I've stepped from reality and into Twilight or something."

"Vampires are hardly something to romanticize," Renley said in tones of disgust. "They're lethal killers, and they only mate with their kind unless they can help it. But no one's seen them for years. If they exist, they've been very quiet about it."

"Good," Gendry said weakly. "Because that would just be ridiculous."

"It wouldn't be ridiculous," Renley said darkly, "it would be disastrous. You can't imagine the panic... The terror. Vampires... They're not sparkly supermodels with sexual issues."

"I have a feeling I don't want to know about this one," Gendry had said. "Or about any of this. No wait, let me revise that: I don't have a feeling, okay? I know I don't want to know. I don't want to be part of this, of any of it. All this monster, voodoo weird shit. No! Count me out, sign me off! I'm not... I'm not even a real Baratheon to begin with!"

Renley let out a long sigh and stared at him, his eyes searching.

"Maybe it's for the best," he said with a sigh. "Even if there's peace now, there's no saying what will happen later. Maybe it's best you're not involved."

And that's how Gendry had stayed. Uninvolved. He had finished school, started attending community college and continued his work as a mechanic. For years he hadn't even heard the hint of the word 'werewolf' besides the random add on TV for some teen show, but that all changed... It all changed when his father died.

A car accident. That's what the official report had been, and Gendry had believed it. Until he had been told better. Until he had opened his eyes and realized that he was involved, even if he didn't want to be. He was always involved.

"Do you remember Arya Stark?" Cersei Lannister had asked him, her green eyes glowing in the gloom of her front parlor. Gendry did remember Arya, how could he not? The cuts had left scars, and the scars had never left. Even if he didn't have scars, he would never, could never, forget those icy blue eyes, looking at his throat with all intent to rip it out.

"I've never met her," he had said, his voice cracking slightly under the pressure. He had never, ever, expected Cersei Lannister, his father's widow, to invite him over for tea, even if his father had died. He had never met her, nor she him, and he had thought she wanted to keep it that way. He certainly did.

"There's no need to lie, Gendry," Cersei had said with a smile that sliced at her face. "I know about the Starks. I know everything."

Gendry didn't know what to make of this, so he took a sip of tea. It tasted weak.

"I know they're werewolves."

Gendry choked on his tea, spraying it everywhere. A look of disgust flashed across Cersei's face, but she quickly shook it off.

"I'm assuming you also know everything as well," she said. "So you know that it was no car accident that killed your father."

"What?" Gendry asked, shocked.

"You don't know," for some reason, Cersei didn't seem surprised. "But Gendry... You must have guessed. You saw the creature, what a vicious, wild animal it is."

"What creature?" Gendry asked, still lost.

"Why Arya Stark, of course," Cersei said with a frown, and there was a fury in her eyes, Gendry could see it. "She killed your father."

"What?" Gendry felt as though something had hit him in the chest. It was getting difficult to breathe... The room felt like it was closing in around him... The darkness creeping...

"It's not surprising," Cersei said briskly, a pure hate behind her voice. "The girl was a wild animal, even when she hadn't turned. Uncontrollable. But Robert wouldn't see any of it, would he? He believed them, and all their lies, and in the end they got him. They would have killed all of us if I hadn't been able to get my hands on a gun and shoot Ned Stark. After that, the girl fled into the woods."

"You mean... You mean that... That _thing_ is still out there?" Gendry demanded, gripping into the arms of his seat, his horror replaced with a lung-crushing rage.

"Yes," Cersei said, her eyes flashing. "Arya Stark runs free."

"But she could kill again!" Gendry gasped, curling his hands into fists.

"Exactly," Cersei said smoothly. Gendry slammed his hand against the table, so hard the tea pot and cups clattered. "That's why you're going to kill her."

"What?" Gendry gasped, his rage momentarily put on hold for his surprise.

"It was your father's dying wish," Cersei said. "As he lay dying in my arms, he asked... He asked for you. He wanted you to avenge him."

Her words echoed in his mind now, as he gripped the steering wheel of his car, sitting parked at the edge of the woods. The woods that had given him nightmares for years. Now he no longer feared them. He was ready for what was inside.

Clutching his cross bow, Gendry opened the door and then closed it, careful to make as little noise as possible. He popped open the trunk, and stared down at the sledgehammer there, gleaming in the moonlight. He had known, right off the bat, that he couldn't take a werewolf down with a crossbow. He was a crappy shot, at best, but he knew that if he could hit it, and wound it, he'd be able to bash its head in with the hammer. It was ruthless, and it was brutal... _But it's what it deserves._

He snatched up the sledgehammer and closed the trunk and then proceeded into the woods. The moonlight sifted through the trees, but this time Gendry wasn't afraid, he was filled with purpose. After he had slinked sufficiently into the woods, he looked around for the perfect spot. He found it in a ditch at the base of a tree. Crouching there, he was invisible, just another shadow.

Now came the tricky part. Gendry had no hope of finding the wolf simply by looking for it, but he knew that it was a full moon, and a full moon meant bloodlust. Arya Stark had been wandering around in the woods for three days. She was bound to be a little crazed, if she wasn't already. Where that might have frightened him once, it was now to Gendry's advantage.

Carefully, he reached out and, with the tip of one of the arrows, he cut his finger, blood bubbling from the hole in his skin. He could smell the scent, and he knew the wolf could. He could almost sense what the smell of his blood was doing to it. The crazed sniffing, the shift from icy blue to blood red...

There was the crack of a twig, and then he heard its breathing. Low, ragged, a soft growl. It was right behind the tree...

Gendry held his breath and held his bow at the ready.

Cautiously, the wolf took a step forward, and then another. Gendry turned his head, and when he saw its eyes, they weren't icy, but a terrified, frantic gray.

It jumped-

And then it screamed. A girl's scream.

Gendry leapt to his feet as the beast toppled over, an arrow in its side, crashing to the ground, unconscious. There was a moment of silence, and Gendry picked up his hammer, walking so he stood over it, staring down at the mass of fur and claws... Ready to strike...

But then it changed. The fur began to shrink away, and its body began to curl smaller and smaller until it wasn't a beast anymore, but a young girl. She was so small. So tiny. Her hands were clasped around her naked chest, her body curled towards the arrow imbedded in her side, and suddenly... Suddenly Gendry realized that he couldn't do it.

He couldn't kill her.


	2. The Woods

**Three days earlier**

In the coldness of the night, she smelled the warmth of blood. In the silence of the woods, she heard the sound of a beating heart. The moon bled icily in the sky, and the fire that rippled throughout her body roared in pleasure. She could taste it too, on her breath and teeth. Not just blood, but fear. Delicious fear.

**'**_**Arya!'**_

The ground flowed under her in streaks of scattered sticks and leaves as she ran. Instinct took over as she shot through the thin, sleek bodies of the trees, no longer a thing, or an object, but a shadow. Wild. Powerful. Unstoppable.

_**'ARYA!'**_

A voice in the back of her head told her that it was Jon who called out her name, but the voice also didn't seem to care all that much. There was something tugging though, at the pit of her stomach and she knew, somewhere inside, that it had nothing to do with the deer she had just eaten. '_This is wrong,' _something whispered. '_This isn't you.'_

But it was her. Arya was just a shadow, a dream. The moon's light gleamed bright against the wet leaves of the wood, and she stopped, throwing her head back and howling, relishing the echoing tones, her blood rushing hot with adrenaline. And then she heard it again. The heart beat. It began to pump furiously now, and she licked her lips.

**'**_**ARYA!'**_

Jon again, this time desperately. There was something about the command that wasn't a command, but a plea, and when she took of running towards the beating heart, it felt like she wasn't running forwards, but backwards, like there was a great weight tugging her back. The humanity within her was refusing to let go.

But then she saw him. So delicious, so afraid. She could smell alcohol on him, along with a particular scent of car grease and metal. But it was his blood that sent her claws digging into the earth. She had never had something so mouthwateringly tempting. _Human. Human._

Before she knew what she was doing, he was beneath her, her claws now digging into his flesh. His heart was beating so intoxicatingly fast, the blood that ran underneath the soft skin of his throat pulsing. Her mouth watered and she leaned forward, drawing her lips back, a growl in her throat-

He had blue eyes. It was such a stupid, irrelevant fact, but for some reason the sharp blue of them caught her eye, and curiously she cocked her head to one side to take a look, and then suddenly something shift. He was terrified of her. No one had ever looked at her like that, like she was a monster, but this boy did.

_"We're not monsters," _her father's words rang in her head, _"we just have... A sort of... Fury problem."_

She wasn't a monster. She wasn't-

_**'Arya!'**_

This time it was her father's voice. The Alpha voice. Slowly, she turned and looked at him, and then back at the boy. There was a pause.

And then she slashed his throat apart with her teeth.

"NOOO!" Arya screamed, sitting bolt upright in bed, clutching at her own neck, her heart hammering so hard in her chest that she thought it might explode from her throat. She was covered with sweat and shaking, fear, real fear, rushing through her blood. '_Calm down Arya. Calm down. It was just a dream. You didn't kill him. You would never hurt anyone.'_

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.

"You're fine," she whispered. "Fine."

She hated that nightmare. Hated it, because afterward she always felt scared. Of herself. It was a feeling she loathed more than anything else.

"We're not monsters," she recited under her breath, rubbing her arms up and down, "we've just got a sort of fury problem."

She smiled. That always made her feel better, but for some reason, as soon as she smiled, she felt an icy chill. It was probably the sweat, she told herself, but her skin was prickling, and her stomach suddenly turned cold. Her breath caught in her throat, and then she heard it. The muffled sound of voices.

Without thinking, she pulled her sheets back and slipped from the bed. The house, Robert Baratheon's huge, sprawling mansion, still was a maze to her, and in the night it really did transform into a labyrinth. Every hallway looked the same, but she didn't use her eyes to navigate. Instead she used her ears, her fingers trailing along the walls as some sort of support, as if to leave a path for herself, when in reality they left no trace. She just followed the muffled voices until they weren't muffled anymore, but intelligible. She recognized them too. '_Dad_.'

The door was cracked open, a slit of light cutting across the darkness of the rest of the house, drawing her in like a moth. As she crept towards the door, her feet softly molding with the carpet, her breath held back, she could hear what they were saying.

"You," her father's voice said. "You killed him!"

"I don't know what you're talking about," this was Cersei Lannister talking.

"I saw you!" Her father's voice hissed. "I know. I know what you did. I know what you are!"

There was a long silence, and then Cersei Lannister laughed. A cold, cruel laugh.

"You are incredibly stupid," she said in a low voice, one that sounded like snakes. "But then again, you are an animal, aren't you?"

"I won't let you get away with this," her father growled. "He was my best friend! Twice the man-"

"Twice the man Jaime is?" Cersei Lannister's voice was deadly. "Is that what you were trying to say?"

There was silence.

"Let me tell you something, Ned Stark," she said in low tones, "your friend died a coward. He was so drunk that when I ripped his stomach, do you know what came out?"

Arya gasped, and clamped a hand over her mouth, her heart hammering in her ribs. She hadn't been afraid, until that moment, but there was something horribly, horribly wrong. She had been assured, until now, that if it came to a fight, her father had nothing to worry about, but there was something... Something about the way Cersei was talking, and what she was saying that set Arya's hair on edge. Because there was something about Cersei in this moment that horrified her to the bone. Something not human.

Her father made a move for Cersei's throat, but Cersei's hand shot out and grabbed his wrist, her fingers tightening around it, clamping it so hard that Ned screamed in pain, and Arya could hear the sound of bones crunching.

That was when Arya knew that Cersei Lannister was not human.

"I wonder what we'll find when we rip open you?" Cersei asked, leaning over Ned as she twisted his wrist the other way, grating the bones. He sunk to his knees, his teeth bared in pain. His wolf teeth.

"Mother?"

Arya nearly fell over in relief. She never thought, once in her life that she would ever, _ever_ be happy to see Joffrey Baratheon, but by god she could have kissed him. '_Thank you. Thank you for doing something right in your miserable existence.'_

"Dad!"

Arya's heart sank. Sansa.

"Dad what's going on? What did you do to him? Oh my god Dad!" she shrieked, and through the crack in the doorway, Arya could see her sister collapse next to Ned as he shook in pain, the bones in his wrist resetting themselves. "You promised not to hurt him!"

"And you were stupid enough to believe it," Joffrey said cruelly. "You're so stupid."

"I'll ask you," Ned winced as the final shards of bone cracked back into place, "not to speak to my daughter like that."

"I'll speak to her as I like," Joffrey said in that stupid voice of his, and Arya curled her hands into fists. When she opened them again, they were claws.

Ned let out a snort of laughter, and then exploded. One minute he was on the ground and the next he was fully transformed, a raging beast of fury, crashing into Joffrey and sending him smashing into the wall, crashing into a mirror. The glass shattered like rain.

"NO!" Sansa screamed. "STOP! STOP!"

Arya was so shocked she could barely move. Joffrey... He had killed Joffrey. His head was all bent out of shape, his neck broken-

Sansa screamed aloud, a horrible, terrified scream as Joffrey slowly jerked his head around, the neck bone snapping back into place. When he raised his head up, Arya realized something. He had no reflection. In the broken shards of glass, there was only Ned's monstrous shape. And once more, he didn't have normal teeth either. They were fangs.

'_They're vampires. Holy shit. They're vampires.'_

Sansa was screaming as Joffrey grabbed Ned's neck, crushing it with an inhuman strength. Ned roared in pain as blood flowered across his fur, struggling, but Joffrey's fingers sunk into his flesh, locking him in place.

"STOP!" Sansa screamed. "STOP PLEASE-

Arya knew what Joffrey was about to do before he did it. She didn't even have time to breathe before he was snapping Ned's neck back and then, with the precision of a practiced killer, he drove his head down, sank his teeth into Ned's throat and ripped it out.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Sansa screamed, scrambling backwards on her hands as blood spurted like rain.

"NOOOOOO!"

A horrible, furious rage and grief ripped Arya apart as she burst into the room, fully transformed. Everything was bathed in red as she attacked Joffrey, her teeth sinking into his arm as he shrieked. His blood tasted foul, disgusting, and she spit it out in his face digging her claws into his stone cold flesh as he whimpered pathetically. She roared in his face and he screamed again, her fathers blood on his teeth.

She shot her head down, ready to bite, but suddenly she was flying backwards, her side exploding in pain, and then she was hitting something, glass, because it shattered around her, and then she was flying. She smashed into the ground, rolled down a hill and then landed in a ditch, her body straining in pain. When she looked at her hands, they were human and there were shards of glass in them.

"RUN! RUN!"

Arya looked up to see a man running at her, waving his hands wildly. And then she saw why.

Cersei Lannister stood in the broken window, her fists clenched and her eyes murderous. Ready to claim her next victim.

She didn't have to be told twice. Arya leapt to her feet and started sprinting. Running for her life. She would have phased, but she had too many injuries and her body couldn't manage it. She would have to wait to heal, but with shards of glass still imbedded in her hands, her body couldn't complete the process. Every time the skin would try to grow back, it would just get cut again. The pain was excruciating.

It would be much, much worse, however, if Cersei Lannister ripped her hands off.

Arya sprinted as fast as she could, through the garden and then barreling through a hedge, the man following closely behind her. She gritted her teeth and tried to run faster. She could smell Cersei, and her strange perfume that smelled like apples, and she wasn't far behind. She was running as fast as she could, but it wasn't fast enough.

Arya's foot caught on a root and she went sprawling, screaming in pain as the shards of glass bit into her skin.

"RUN!" The man shouted, reaching down and grabbing Arya's arm, yanking her to her feet. As he did so, he stuck a cross in the ground, and then he was dragging her, forcing her to ignore the pain and run. Run. Run.

"That should hold her," he shouted, "but only for a few minutes!"

"Who are you?" Arya asked as they ran through an empty park, the light from the street lamps illuminating the bright red blood coating Arya's hands.

"A friend of your father's," the man said gruffly, releasing her arm. "RUN!"

Arya threw a look over her shoulder and nearly screamed. Cersei Lannister was just passing the park, running at a speed that wasn't human-

"HEAD FOR THE WOODS!" The man roared as they ran. "GET IN THE WOODS AND STAY THERE!"

Arya could see the woods, stretching out before her, the dark mass of trees like a black hole, sucking her in. She closed her eyes and pushed, fighting to run faster, faster than she could. '_Almost there-'_

She suddenly felt as though someone had punched her in the stomach. There was a moment, where she gasped but there was no air, and then she opened her eyes and sighed aloud. The woods. Safe.

She whipped around to see the man clear the woods and then whip around, Cersei Lannister racing towards them-

But then, then... She stopped short and screamed. '_She can't get in_,' Arya thought with wonder. '_She can't enter the woods! But how?_' Arya had been in those woods more times than she could remember, and they had never kept her out. In fact... She no longer felt afraid. These were her woods, her trees, her leaves scattered across the ground. Maybe that was why Cersei couldn't enter.

"Damn you Yoren!" Cersei snarled. "You filthy bastard! She was mine!"

Yoren laughed. Coldly.

"Don't you think this a little despicable, even for you? Killing a little girl?" Yoren said, and even though his voice was laced with sarcasm, there was a deadliness underneath.

"She's not a little girl," Cersei growled. "She's an animal! And she ought to be put down!"

"Well it won't be by you, will it?" Yoren said, and this time he did chuckle. "This is wolf territory. No bloodsuckers allowed."

"I'll get you for this," Cersei said through gritted teeth. "You're dead."

"I'm feeling very threatened right now," Yoren said drily. "Very terrified."

"Don't trifle with me!" Cersei shouted. "You think this is a joke? I will rip your throat from your neck with my teeth!"

"If you can get to it, you're welcome to it," Yoren said softly, and there was no denying the challenge there. Cersei's eyes flashed in the shadows.

"You can't hide in there forever, Arya Stark!" She called out to Arya. "And when you step out of that forest, I'll find you!"

Arya blinked, and she was gone. Cersei had disappeared, and there was only the light of the street lamps and the darkness of the woods and the sound of her heart hammering in her chest. She could barely breathe her mind was racing so fast. '_Dad... Dad...'_

"Stay here," Yoren said sharply, turning to Arya. "Cersei was right. The minute you step out of the woods you're as good as dead."

Arya couldn't say anything. Her mouth was opening, but no sound was coming out.

"Look out for yourself kid," Yoren said softly.

"You're leaving?" She couldn't help it, her voice broke. She didn't know who this man was, or what he was, or how he knew everything, but she couldn't have him leave. He had saved her life. She couldn't have him leave. She couldn't be alone.

"I have to," he said regretfully. "But I'll be back."

"But I... I..." tears were starting to run from her eyes.

"Stay hidden," Yoren commanded sharply, but when he saw her tears, his expression softened. "Don't give up. Whatever you do, you make them pay, you understand?"

She nodded, but she didn't understand, not right now, because there was a huge, gaping hole filling her chest, a pain that far exceeded the one in her hands, and she started to cry, tears running down her face as she tried to shut them out. They wouldn't stop. There was a bubbling, within her, and it kept climbing, from her stomach all the way up to her throat until it was unbearable and she burst out in ugly, horrible sobs.

When she lifted her head and opened her eyes, Yoren was gone and she was totally and utterly alone.

For some reason, the light of the street lamps frightened her, so she wandered blindly towards the darkness, burying herself deeper and deeper into the thick of the woods until she couldn't see from tears and then she collapsed at the foot of a tree, curling into the thick of its roots and picking the glass out of her hands, the salty hot water from her tears washing away the blood that had dried on the surface of her skin. It hurt, pulling the glass from her hands, but it was a numbing pain, and when she was done, and her skin healed, she felt its absence.

It was almost difficult to phase, maybe because her body was so exhausted, but she did it anyway. She felt safer in wolf form. Even if Cersei couldn't enter the woods, it didn't mean that she couldn't send someone to do her dirty work for her, and Arya didn't want to take any chances. She was tired and broken and numb, and being in her wolf form was easier. In her wolf form, she didn't have to feel human.

A day passed and she hardly stirred, but as the sun rose the next morning, Arya began to feel ravenous. She hadn't eaten anything in over a day, and her stomach twisted with starvation. She tried to push it out (she dared not move from her hiding place amongst the roots, least there be some stray hiker or a wandering couple in the woods), but it was no use. What was worse, there was a full moon coming about, and even when she was well fed, the moon always effected Arya the worst.

When it broke through the clouds, she felt the madness. There had never been such a horrible, excruciating battle within her. It felt like she was being ripped apart. All she could smell and think of and taste was blood. Human blood, animal blood. Cersei's blood. Her teeth gnashed wildly, without any control, as if desperate to bite into something, but she fought ardently. She could not, she would not, let herself become a monster. But the monster within her would not let go.

She even attempted to phase back into her human form, but that was pointless. Arya had never had the control her siblings had. Sansa had been a pro, mainly because she hated the wolf in her so much, but it was Jon, her half brother, that Arya had admired the most. When Sansa phased, she reeked of discomfort and misery, but when Jon phased... He was his wolf form, but he was Jon still too. Powerful, in total control. Unstoppable. He was the same Jon, just stronger.

"The problem with you is that you're too strong," Jon had told Arya. "When you phase, it's not just turning and putting on a different face, it's like... It's like you become the wolf. You aren't Arya anymore. You're something else."

It was true. Even now, as she sunk her claws into the ground to keep from running, she could sense herself turning. Her humanity slipping. She was so crazed that all she could smell was blood. Wait. No. There was blood. Fresh blood. Blood from a strong, beating heart. Blood only a few feet away.

Before she knew what she was doing, she was facing the back of a tree. She could hear him, the human, breathing. She could hear his heart beating too. It was wild. Afraid. She took a step closer, and then another.

His eyes were blue.

Then she saw the bow.

There was no time, and yet she tried. She leapt at him, trying to stop him, but midair it bit her, sinking into her side, and she heard herself scream, not a howling of a wolf but a real scream. Arya's scream.

Then there was only blackness.

She was fading in and out. Everything was foggy, weird, disoriented. Her head hurt terribly, and she was freezing and sweating at the same time, and somewhere in her messed up mind she could register that her side hurt very, very much. When the black faded out for a bit, only for a few seconds, something told her that she was no longer on the forest floor.

'_Someone's carrying me_,' said a voice. And so they were. There was something cool around her shoulders, coating her arms. '_A leather jacket_,' the voice informed her. There were smells too, of car grease, of metal and a slight hint of aftershave. And blood. So much blood. There was a poison to the blood smell too, but she didn't have much time to think on it, because the blackness swallowed her up, making her nothing.

The pain was so intense that she thought she might be sick. Arya could barely even open her eyes, she could barely even move, but the pain in her side was so excruciating that she felt panicked. Her mind was racing, frantic, but her body paralyzed. Trapped. Struggling, she forced her eyes to flutter open, but everything was blurry, and she realized that she was shaking while feeling on fire, her body coated with sweat.

'_What's happening to me?'_ She thought desperately. '_Am I dying?'_

The room was starting to focus, and Arya raked her eyes over it, searching for a sign of familiarity and finding nothing. The wallpaper was peeling, and there were water stains on it, and the windows were closed, the curtains drawn, bathing the room in darkness. It was a mans room, she thought. There were heaps of men's closing everywhere, anyway, and the bed she lay in smelt like a man, if that made any sense at all.

'_What am I doing here? What is this place?'_

Then she remembered the blue eyes. The blue eyes that tried to kill her.

There was a noise. Breathing.

Arya whipped around, nearly crying out in pain, but realizing that she couldn't. She was incapable of sound. She squeezed her eyes shut, her hands flying to the wound in her side where the arrow must have hit. They came away bloody.

She looked up, ready to face whoever was there, only to find that the other person in the room wasn't about to attack her. In fact, he was asleep, sitting in a chair with his head hanging down, his arms crossed over his broad chest. She realized she knew him from somewhere. The mop of black hair, the blue eyes.

He was the boy that she had nightmares about.

**yes, I did steal the 'fury little problem' line from harry potter, but I like to think of it as affectionately borrowing.**


	3. Alone

**This…. is a short chapter. Unforgivingly short. But it's funny? So that counts for something right?**

The knock on the door sounded like an atomic bomb. Gendry jumped so violently, he nearly toppled out of the chair he was sitting in, and when he did regain his balance, his heart was racing. His hands were shaking too, damn them. He closed his eyes briefly and repeated to himself the words that he had been saying for hours now. '_You did nothing wrong. You did nothing wrong. You did nothing wrong.'_

But then why did he feel so guilty? Why did it feel like what he had done was monstrous? _She_ was the monster.

There was another knock, but this time Gendry didn't jump. Sending the girl on his bed one last cautious look, he walked to the door, rolling his eyes as the idle knocking turned into pounding. Sighing, he opened his door, but only a fraction. He couldn't be too careful. That much he knew.

"Do you want to wake the entire building?" Gendry grumbled, looking at Hot Pie, his best friend, who stood before him, eyebrows raised.

"Firstly, it's noon, no one is asleep. Secondly, what's going on?" Hot Pie demanded. "And why are you holding the door like that? Oh no, you didn't... You didn't you join a Mexican gang or something, did you? Because that shit comes back to haunt you."

"No," Gendry said, licking his lips and looking down the hallway. Even if he couldn't see anything, there was still the high possibility that they were being watched. "Worse. You'd better come in. Quick."

"Oh no," Hot Pie said, "did you get a girl pregnant? Because if you did, you're so dead. I mean like-"

"Just get in," Gendry snapped, grabbing Hot Pie by the shirt and yanking him inside, slamming the door behind him.

"Okay," Hot Pie said, watching as Gendry proceeded to lock, then bolt the door, and then put a chair under the knob. "You're definitely starting to freak me out. What's going on?"

"It's bad," Gendry said, turning around to face his friend.

"Dude..." Hot Pie said, taking in the room. All the windows were shut and the curtains drawn. Plus the phone was disconnected and the lights were turned off. "What could you possibly have done...? Are people after you? Did you rob a bank or something?"

"People aren't after me now," Gendry said slowly. "But they will be. Soon."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hot Pie hissed. "Are you into drugs? Have you been dealing crack?"

"Would I still be living in this shitty apartment if I was dealing crack?" Gendry demanded incredulously.

Hot Pie threw up his hands.

"Well then what?" He whisper-shouted. "What the fuck did you do man?"

Gendry shot a look towards his bedroom door.

"I think I'll have to show you..." He said in a low voice.

"If this is a decapitated corpse-"

"What do you take me for? A psycho? It's not a decapitated corpse!" Gendry snarled.

"At this point, I'm thinking worst case scenario," Hot Pie said defensively. "If you don't want me to start imagining things, then stop being so fucking mysterious."

"Fine!" Gendry snapped. "Look."

Hot Pie followed him into his room, and then stopped when his eyes alighted on the bed. The girl still lay there where Gendry left her, unmoving, her body rising and falling slowly with each ragged breath. Her face was still slick with sweat and white as sleet, and her body curled, feeble, under the thin sheets.

"Holy shit," Hot Pie breathed. "When I said you should take a girl home, this was not what I had in mind."

"Don't be stupid," Gendry snapped.

"What's wrong with her?" Hot Pie whispered, drawing closer and seeing the red stain of blood against the sheets.

"I..." Again, he had done nothing wrong, but an overwhelming guilt was strangling him, choking the words back. "I shot her. With an arrow."

"What the actual fuck?" Hot Pie shouted. "Are you serious?"

"Will you shut up?" Gendry hissed, clamping his hand over Hot Pie's mouth. "Do you want a pack of the most deadliest werewolves breaking down my door and ripping out our throats?"

Hot Pie's eyes widened.

"Holy Shit," he said, horrified. "Do you mean...?"

"Yeah," Gendry sighed, looking over at the girl and remembering how her eyes had burned icy bright in the shadows, "she's a werewolf."

"I thought you were going to stay out of this?" Hot Pie said through gritted teeth, glaring at Gendry, as though he had done him some grievous ill.

"She killed my Dad, Hot Pie, I think that counts for a rule change," Gendry snarled back.

Hot Pie paused a minute and then he grabbed Gendry by the arm and dragged him out of the room and into the kitchen.

"You bring a vicious, homicidal maniac, not to mention supernatural monster, home, and your first thought is to invite me over?" Hot Pie scream-whispered. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?"

"She's not going to hurt anyone, Hot Pie-"

"Oh yeah you can just sit back and relax," Hot Pie went on sardonically. "You, with all your muscle and brawn. What to I have? Huh? What if that thing woke up and attacked me?"

"She's not a thing," Gendry said automatically, before he could stop himself. Hot Pie made a face of outrage.

"I have tender skin!" He hissed. "A talon could cut me like butter!"

"Tender skin, what is this? And a talon? Wolves don't have talons, dumbass. They're called _claws_," Gendry scoffed.

"Do I look like I give two shits? It's not going to matter when I'm dead!" Hot Pie snarled. "I hate you so much right now!"

"Then leave," Gendry grumbled in low tones.

"I can't, you fucktard," Hot Pie said, flaring his nostrils. "None of us can. The minute we leave this apartment, we're fair game."

"I think we're going to have to leave this apartment," Gendry said seriously. "She's getting worse and worse every minute. I can't stop the bleeding."

"Well did you take out the arrow?" Hot Pie asked. Gendry let out a long sigh.

"Yeah, but the thing is... It wasn't any ordinary arrow," he admitted. Again, he felt the guilt. But why? Why?

"Wolfsbane," Hot Pie said knowingly. "Smart move dude."

"But she's dying," Gendry said, and for some reason, he felt a pang of desperation snag at him. "She's going to die Hot Pie."

"Isn't that the point?" Hot Pie demanded. "Didn't she kill your dad?"

Gendry chewed his lip, torn. That was just the thing. It didn't feel right. Everything screamed that it was, but there was just something... She was so alone. That was it. And Gendry knew, with a searing pain, what it was like to be totally and utterly alone.

"I can't do it," he said. "We've got to get her better."

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" Hot Pie cried, his voice strained from trying to whisper. "Get her better? One, that's not even grammatically correct, two: have you been doing crack?"

"I'm pretty sure it is-"

"Do you want to have this argument? Because I'm pretty sure you've failed every English class you've ever taken," Hot Pie pointed out. Gendry rolled his eyes.

"Listen," Gendry said, "she's just a kid-"

"Yeah a psycho kid," Hot Pie said. "And for the record, bro, she's not that much of a kid, in case you noticed."

"I noticed," Gendry's cheeks flushed with fire. Dressing her had been a very, _very_ awkward experience for him, something that had probably aided to the guilty feeling that was twisting at his stomach. "Unfortunately."

"Kid, teenager, who gives a fuck? The bitch is psycho. She needs to be put down," Hot Pie reasoned.

"Fine," Gendry snarled. "Then you do it."

And with that he stormed off to the bathroom to cool off, or at least give himself a moment to think. He was in deep, he knew. This was bad, very bad. It would be _so much_ easier if he could just kill her. Get it over with, get it done. '_But she's so alone_,' a small voice in his head said. '_She has no one.'_

_ 'So what? That's justification for murder?'_ No, Hot Pie was right. Gendry wasn't the one being fair. Why had he pulled him into this in the first place? Hot Pie didn't deserve to go down because Gendry couldn't complete the one thing his father had ever asked of him. Hot Pie had stuck with him through the thick and the thin. He had believed him when he told Hot Pie where the cuts on his chest had really come from, and this is how Gendry repaid his best friend? Dragging him into danger?

"No," Gendry said to his reflection in the mirror. "No."

It was time to pick up his sledgehammer and get the job done.

Pursing his lips and expelling all the air from his lungs, Gendry gave himself one last, long look, and then reached out and grabbed the handle of the door, turning it and opening it. As he turned out the lights of the bathroom, he realized how quiet it was. Had Hot Pie made a run for it?

"Prick," Gendry muttered darkly under his breath as he made his way down the hall, the floorboards creaking under his weight. This was so typical of Hot Pie, to chicken out when it mattered most. Gendry cursed him under his breath as he entered the kitchen-living room. Damn it was dark. He really should turn on a light, but then there was the possibility of being seen... Aww fuck it. He was sick of stubbing his toes in the dark.

Gendry reached for the lamp switch and then screamed.

Hot Pie lay on the ground, knocked unconscious. The girl... She wasn't asleep anymore, and she certainly wasn't harmless. Wound or no wound, she was alive and kicking.

There was a creek.

Gendry whipped around and looked up, straight into two icy eyes glowing in the darkness.

**short and a cliffhanger? Tisk tisk me. But, if it's any consolation, I've already started writing the next chapter**


	4. An uneasy alliance

**Sooo short =(**

**But the next one will be much longer, okay?**

"Kid, teenager, who gives a fuck? The bitch is psycho. She needs to be put down," the fat one reasoned.

"Fine," the boy with the blue eyes snarled. "Then you do it."

There was the sound of heavy footfalls, and then the slamming of a door. Arya stared, her eyes wide. Her lungs hurt, and then she realized that she had been holding her breath. She dared not even move... But... But if she didn't, she might as well sign her own death certificate. Cersei hadn't lied when she said that she'd find Arya. She didn't even need to find Arya. She'd just have someone else do it for her.

'_Well joke's on you Cersei,' _Arya thought bitterly, her fingers twisting in the sheets as she struggled into a sitting position, biting back the pain in her side. '_Because there's no way in hell that I'm dying. No way.'_

Walking hurt almost worst then death, or maybe more, since death had a sort of finality to it, whereas with this, every second was a new definition of pain. Arya had to grind her teeth together to keep from making noise. Each step she placed with care, so that she made no sound. Just another moving shadow.

The boy with the blue eyes was gone, but his friend was still there, with the fridge open, munching away on what looked like week-old guacamole. '_Idiot.' _He was a perfect target, even if Arya was weak and encumbered with her injury. Unassuming, easily distracted by food. She didn't even need to phase. She just picked up a lamp and hit him over the head. Out cold.

Setting the lamp down, her eyes flickered to the door. She could make a break for it, but that would be stupid. Even in full strength, she'd be caught in a matter of minutes. Seconds, maybe. With her injury... She might as well just kill herself. She needed to be healed. Now. The wound was starting to smell, and every time she moved it was like getting stabbed. Repeatedly.

There was a sound down the hall, and Arya froze. The boy with the blue eyes... He was coming here. He was coming to get her.

"Phase damn it!" Arya hissed under her breath, squeezing her eyes shut and digging her nails into her palms, the hole in her side rippling spastically as she tried to transform. There was a clicking sound as he turned off the bathroom lights...

Then it happened. Her fingers contorted and snapped, claws ripping through the tips, replacing her nails. She contorted her chest and then released, feeling the transformation ripple through her body in one great rush. Bigger. Better. Stronger.

Deadly.

'_I hope for your sake you have some more arrows, but I suspect not.' _Wound or no wound, she was ready. She was ready and she was fierce and she was unforgiving. The moment she laid eyes on the boy, he was dead.

She heard the door of the bathroom creek open and the boy shuffle out. '_Stupid. So incredibly stupid. _He didn't even check the room to see if she was gone. Chuckling silently to herself, she waited, crouched a top the counter in his kitchen, ready, every muscle pinching, itching to spring upon him and take him down.

He unwittingly stumbled into the living room, and she held her breath as she watched him reach for the lamp, and then he screamed. A cruel grin pulled itself across Arya's face. '_You want to play, huh? Well come on then, arrow boy, let's play. '_

He whipped around, locked eyes with her, and then she sprang, claws outreached, mouth open. He fell with an almighty crash, roaring in panic as she sunk her claws into his chest, snarling and snapping for his throat. But she hadn't anticipated how strong he'd be. To her shock, as soon as he hit the ground, he was throwing her off him, sending her crashing into the wall. She recovered quickly, whipping back around and then diving again, but this time he rolled out of the way.

She hit the floor, knocking the wind from her, and then darted for his ankles, grabbing them with her teeth and then sending him slamming into the ground, screaming, arms flailing. His blood flooded her mouth, hot and delicious.

"LET GO!" He screamed, grabbing a lamp and slamming it into her head with an unexpected force. Arya unclenched her teeth, whimpering in pain, and then she screamed. The boy had leapt to his feet and then delivered an almighty kick to her side. Right where he had shot her with the arrow.

She felt her entire body wither, and then she was back in her human form, naked (why did that always, _always_ happen?), and sobbing in pain. The wound hurt so bad that she just wanted to die. She just wanted to die.

"COME ON!" She screamed at the boy. "DO IT! DO IT DAMN YOU!"

But he just stared at her stupidly. Stupid fucking idiot. He couldn't even kill her properly.

"COME ON!" She shrieked. "COME ON! DO IT! YOU HAVE ME WHERE YOU WANT ME, DO IT! THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED, RIGHT? THEN JUST PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY AND DO IT! SHOOT ME!"

"I..." He stuttered out stupidly, staring at her. "I don't have anymore arrows."

"ARE YOU MENTALLY DEFICIENT?" Arya roared at him. "IF YOU DON'T HAVE ARROWS, THEN DON'T USE THEM! USE A FUCKING KNIFE FOR ALL I CARE!"

"You can't kill werewolves with knives," the boy said, frowning.

"OH MY GOD!" Arya screamed. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?"

"Why do you want to die?" The boy asked. "Didn't you just attack me to save yourself?"

"I am literally going to kill you," Arya snarled viciously. "If this goddamn arrow wound won't kill me first. What was that? Why can't I heal?"

"That's because the arrow was made with wolfsbane," the boy said, almost apologetically, leaning down. Arya snarled at him and he backed up a few steps. "Does it hurt a lot?"

"Why don't you come a little closer and I'll show you?" Arya growled venomously. "What kind of hunter are you? Huh?"

"I'm not a hunter," the boy said with a frown, and he had a stupid look on his face. A stubborn look. He started backing up more, and then went around and... '_Oh my god, is he picking up the couch to put it right? I'm naked, in the middle of his living room with a hole in my side, and he's concerned with setting his couch right? What an absolute... Fuck stick.'_

"Then what's with the arrows and the shooting?" Arya gasped, clamping her hands at her side and curling into a ball. "Or were you just going for a little midnight stroll?"

The boy walked slowly from around the couch, and Arya could see that he was carrying something, but her eyes were watering so badly that she couldn't see what it was. It was probably something like a sledgehammer._ 'Good. He's getting the job done.'_

"You killed my father," he said quietly.

"What?" Arya gasped, her head swimming. She wasn't sure if her tears were from pain or something else.

"Robert Baratheon," the boy said, taking a step forward, and this time his voice had dropped a few octaves, and she could tell that he was growing angry. Bitterly angry. "You remember him? It must get hard to keep up, with so many victims, but strain your memory."

"I don't have to strain," Arya winced, "I remember Robert."

Her Dad's best friend. The fat drunk with the black hair... And the blue eyes.

"You look like him."

She hadn't meant to say it, but her side hurt too much, and her head hurt too and she was tired and she was alone and she was just... She was broken. '_People used to say I looked like Dad.' _She started to cry, stupid, weak tears, but it didn't matter because she couldn't hold them back. Sometimes strength was not enough.

"Remorse?" The boy's voice was tight, torn between anger and a conflicted sadness. "You feel remorse now? Don't you think... Don't you think it's _a little too late _for that?"

She looked up to see him kneeling next to her. There were tears in his eyes.

"Why?" he asked quietly, his voice cracking. "Was he just another victim of a full moon?"

"I never hurt him!" Arya cried angrily. "I'm not a monster! They are!"

The boy frowned.

"Who are?"

"Cersei!" Arya gasped, reaching out her hand, only to find that it wasn't covered in blood... But in a black, sticky liquid. "She's a vampire! They're... They're all vampires."

The boy took her hand sharply, and gave it a long, worried look. Then he let it go and looked away.

"Are... Are you going to kill me now?" Arya asked softly, drawing her hand back to wrap it around her chest, though he could hardly see anything in the gloom. The boy looked back at her, straight into her eyes.

He shifted, moved towards her, and for a moment, Arya thought he might grab her and force her down by her throat... But he didn't. Instead, he reached out, and then she realized what he had in his hands. What he had went to retrieve from under the couch. A blanket. Gently, he wrapped it around her shoulders.

"No," he said with a sharp finality. "I'm going to make you better."

**As always, love your reviews! Thank you all so much =) **


	5. Road Rage

**Sorry about the gap in updating!**

"This is a bad idea."

"Why did I have a sneaking suspicion you'd say that?" Gendry asked in low tones, sending his room a worried look, where Arya was changing. Hot Pie held a bag of frozen peas to the bump on his head, wincing.

"Because it is," he said, snapping at Gendry. "Hurry up with the pain meds will you? My head's aching."

"These are for Arya, dumbass," Gendry snapped. "They'll make her sleep. Might alleviate the pain until we get to my uncle's."

"Calling her by her name now? That's never good thing. Didn't your parents tell you never to name pets you were going to get rid of?" Hot Pie said in a whiny voice, trying to grab the pills out of Gendry's hand.

"Fuck off!" Gendry snapped, swatting him away.

"But my head hurts! I'm going to have a welt!" Hot Pie cried.

"It's not even that bad. At least you don't have wolfsbane poisoning your blood!" Gendry hissed.

"Hey man," Hot Pie said, "do I ever downplay your suffering? Do I ever say, 'hey, you know, you might have a shitty job, and a shitty apartment and a shitty life, but at least you're good looking?' Hmmm?"

"Actually you say that all the time," Gendry said.

"Yeah well whatever. Could you just give me some goddamn Motrin or something? Is that too much to ask? Huh? After all I've been through for you? For_ you_ man," Hot Pie said dramatically, grabbing hold of Gendry's shirt.

"LET GO!" Gendry groaned with annoyance. "It's in the top left cabinet!"

"Not going to even go get it for me, in my decaying state-"

"If you seriously don't shut up, I'm going to kill you," Gendry said solemnly.

"Hey," Hot Pie said, getting up to get the pain medication. "Did I invite myself here? Did I say, 'oh hey Hot Pie, come over, get attacked by some supernatural psycho bitch and eat my guacamole'? Did I?"

"I'm pretty sure I never asked you to eat my guacamole," Gendry said with a frown. "Wait... I have guacamole?"

"Yeah bro, it was in the fridge," Hot Pie said, getting water.

"Hot Pie... That was from like two months ago."

Arya padded into the kitchen wearing one of Gendry's t-shirts and his pajama pants, her eyebrows raised as Hot Pie made melodious retching noises in the sink.

"What's wrong with him?" She asked, looking a bit revolted.

"Nothing. It's just something he does from time to time," Gendry said as Hot Pie tried to preform the heimlich maneuver on himself.

"YOU POISONED ME YOU WRETCH!" Hot Pie shrieked, making heinous gagging noises.

"He was into drama in high school," Gendry said to Arya, who looked like she was trying not to laugh. "It never left."

"Are you sure he's not freaking out because he ate that guacamole?" She asked. "It looked like it had hairs growing out of it."

"Please, wolf girl," Hot Pie gasped, "let's keep it down with the disgusting imagery, all right?"

"Wolf girl?" Arya demanded, her voice sharp.

"Here," Gendry said quickly, sensing danger. "Take these. They'll make you sleep, and that should take the pain off for a while, until we get to my uncle's at least."

"Your uncle's?" Arya asked cautiously, gingerly taking the pills from Gendry.

"He's sort of a hunter," Gendry explained comfortingly, giving her a glass of water. "He'll know what to do about that hole in your side."

"Not Stannis?" Arya asked, her hand hovering over her mouth. Gendry shook his head.

"No," he said firmly. "Stannis would sooner shoot you with a silver bullet, but my uncle Renly won't hurt you. Not when I explain."

"And what would that be exactly?" Hot Pie asked. Arya glared at him.

"I'm working on it, all right?" Gendry snapped. "Take the pills, we'd better get going. We don't have much time before the infection spreads, and once it does, it'll be too late to do anything."

Arya nodded vigorously, and even in the gloom of his apartment, Gendry could see that she was white as sleet and sweating. He had tried to treat the wound with antibiotics, cleaning it with alcohol and bandaging it up, but that would only do so little. He needed Renly's expertise, and fast.

Her hand hovered over her mouth.

"Just trust me on this one, all right?" Gendry said, trying not to think about how stupid it sounded.

"Trust you?" She said, raising an eyebrow. "Weren't you the idiot that got me into this whole mess in the first place?"

"Look I know," Gendry said with a sigh. "But if you're right, if they really are vampires..."

"I'm not lying!" She shouted, but she winced when she did, and her hands were shaking.

"Well..." Gendry said slowly. "We're gonna need all the help we can get."

"What he's trying to say is get on with it," Hot Pie snapped.

"Just wait until I get my strength up," Arya snarled at him, popping the pills back. "I know I can't."

She drained all her water in one gulp.

"Let's go."

"Ahh ahh ahh," Hot Pie said, "I think not."

"What?" Gendry demanded.

"Not without supplies," Hot pie said, running down the hall, his voice floating behind him. "You can never tell what will happen with vampires, and it's good to be prepared!"

Arya and Gendry exchanged a look.

"Would it be better if you lied down?" Gendry asked and Arya nodded, wiping sweat from her brow. When he laid a hand on her shoulder, he could feel it shake. It was icy cold as well.

"Hurry up you!" Gendry shouted at Hot Pie as Arya began to droop slightly, her eyes blinking.

"Ready to roll!" Hot Pie shouted, carrying a backpack and trying to zip it up. "Should I maybe make a quick sandwich-?"

"NO!" Arya and Gendry shouted, at the same time. There was a moment of silence, and Arya gave him a queer look, but that was probably because the drugs were starting to take effect. Her eyes were slowly beginning to fade shut.

"I'll carry her," Gendry said hastily, scooping Arya up into his arms. "You know, for a huge supernatural beast, you're awfully small."

"Say another word and I'll kill you," Arya said weakly, yawning.

"Okay," Hot Pie said as they stood facing the door, "there's nothing to say what's on the other side of that thing. It could be anything. A pack of angry wolves... Then there's the possibility of blood crazed vampires..."

"Just open the damn door and we'll deal with it," Gendry said through gritted teeth. Hot Pie looked pale, but he did as he was told.

The door creaked open-

"Nothing," Gendry said with a relish. "That was an anticlimax. Let's go."

They hurried down the hall and then down three flights of stairs, Hot Pie constantly looking over his shoulder as they went. It was dark outside, probably past seven. The sky was washed with clouds, and no stars were out. It was quiet too.

"Too quiet," Hot Pie muttered under his breath. "The kind of quiet where crazy shit jumps out and bites your neck."

"Just stop talking," Gendry snapped as they hurried across the parking lot to his car. "Please."

It took a few awkward seconds as Hot Pie fished around in Gendry's pant pockets, trying to find the keys. A few awkward seconds that Gendry was going to be blocking for the rest of his life. Finally, _finally_, Hot Pie got the keys and unlocked the car, allowing Gendry to deposit a sleepy Arya in the backseat.

"I'm thinking we just book it there," Hot Pie said, practically jumping in the car. "Like fuck the speed limit, man. Just take all freeways."

"It's faster if we take the off ramp," Gendry snapped, turning on the car.

"But that one takes us through barren territory! Anything could attack us!" Hot Pie cried dramatically.

"Hot Pie?" Gendry said, revving the engine.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

"Oh," Hot Pie snapped, "it's going to be one of those car rides, is it? The one's that are long, and awkward, and silent?"

"Let me put it this way-"

"If you don't shut up, I'll kill you," Arya rasped in the back seat, and when Gendry looked at her in the mirror, she looked so sickly, and yet so terrifying in the backseat that he wasn't surprised when Hot Pie gulped.

"That's great cuz I hate talking anyway," he said in a high pitched voice.

"Fantastic," Gendry mumbled under his breath as he sped onto the freeway.

They traveled for twenty minutes in silence. Well, almost silence. Hot Pie just couldn't settle himself for total silence. He kept fiddling with the radio until Gendry slapped his hand, and then he got out a bag of chips he had somehow managed to nick from Gendry's apartment and began to eat them noisily, each crunch driving Gendry mad. Arya didn't seemed bothered, though, but that was probably due to the fact that she had fallen asleep in the back.

Hot Pie's crunching got worse as Gendry exited the freeway and then turned onto a lone stretch of road, one that would stretch twenty miles and straight to his uncle's house. Gendry couldn't help but feel a bit edgy too. There were no houses along this road, just abandoned barns and then endless flat fields.

"Don't be a twat," he mumbled to himself, turning up the radio. What was going to jump out? A vampire? Arya had said they existed, but was he really going to trust her? He had barely spoken a hundred words to her. She was probably just delirious from the wound in her side.

"Slow down dude," Hot Pie said with a mouthful of chips. "You're going 100 in a 50 zone."

"Oh yeah," Gendry said sarcastically. "I better watch out for all the cops-"

"HOLY SHIT LOOK OUT!"

Gendry barely had time to slam on the brakes, sending the car into am ear-splitting, screeching halt, right in front of a teenager standing in the middle of the road, his back to them. There was a pause as they both gasped for breath, Hot Pie looking like he had pissed his pants.

"WHAT THE FUCK?" Gendry yelled, honking his horn at the teenager, who just stood there, staring at the road in front of them, as if he had no care in the world. "MOVE OUT OF THE ROAD YOU PRICK!"

"We could have died!" Hot Pie yelled. "And I inhaled a chip... Holy shit... Gendry..."

"What?" Gendry asked, but his eyes widened in horror as he saw exactly what.

The blonde teenager slowly turned, a smile on his face... A smile that revealed fangs. He turned his head to one side, and said something that was probably a death threat. But he wasn't looking at Gendry or Hot Pie, but straight into the backseat, where Arya slept.

"DRIVE!" Hot Pie screamed. "DRIVE!"

Gendry slammed his foot on the gas just as the blonde boy leapt foreword and onto the hood of the car, causing Gendry to swerve slightly.

"HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT!" Hot Pie screamed as the wheels screeched.

Gendry was face to face with the boy, a thin layer of glass the only thing separating him from the bloodsuckers lethal fangs. And that was when Gendry realized something. He knew the blonde boy. He was his half brother Joffrey.

"GET THE FUCK OFF MY WINDSHIELD!" Gendry roared, clicking on the windshield wipers, and then spraying water in Joffrey's face.

Joffrey promptly replied by ripping the windshield wipers right off the car.

"HOLY SHIT!" Hot Pie screamed, his voice cracking.

"DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT'S GONNA COST ME, ASSHOLE?" Gendry roared, slamming his foot on the break, causing Joffrey to topple of the car, and then slamming his foot on the accelerator.

That worked for about two seconds, because the next thing Gendry knew, there was a loud thump on the roof of his car, and then Joffrey leapt down onto the hood, hard, the whole car jumping. Hot Pie screamed.

Joffrey, looking murderous, reached his fist back, ready to punch in the windshield-

"EAT THIS MOTHERFUCKER!" Hot Pie roared, plunging his hand in the bag and then thrusting out a cross. Joffrey let out a roar of pain, throwing up his hands as if blinded, and then fell off the car.

"How did you know to use that?" Gendry yelled.

"Basic rule of vampires bro! They hate Jesus!" Hot Pie yelled back. "NOW FUCK THE SPEED LIMIT AND DRIVE!"

"On it," Gendry said through gritted teeth as they sped down the road, the car at full capacity.

"OH SHIT HE'S COMING BACK!" Hot Pie screeched. "DRIVE! DRIIIIIIIIIIVE!"

"WHAT DO YOU THINK I'M DOING? HAVING TEA?" Gendry shouted. "SHUT UP!"

"I'M JUST SAYING- HOLY SHIT!"

There was a bang, and then a crunching sound.

"HOLY SHIT HE'S ON THE ROOF OF THE CAR! HE JUST PUNCHED THE ROOF OF THE CAR!"

"I am SO not paying for this!" Gendry bellowed. "I don't even have insurance!"

"Really?" Hot Pie said distractedly. "That sucks buddy."

They both screamed as Joffrey slammed his fist into the roof of the car again, denting it severely. Arya looked like she was struggling to stay awake, but the sleeping pills were too powerful, and Gendry could tell that she could barely keep her eyes open. One more punch and Joffrey would split through the roof and be able to get to her. The fear in her eyes was so sharp that Gendry felt it too.

"HOT PIE!" He shouted. "HOLD ON TIGHT!"

"What are you-"

But Hot pie never got to finish his sentence, because Gendry whipped the wheel around, while also lifting his foot off the accelerator and then putting it on the break, causing the car to go spinning around, Hot Pie screaming so loud that Gendry was pretty sure he _had_ pissed his pants. They came to a screeching halt, the car nearly tipping over in the process and then falling back down with a loud _THUMP!_

"ARE YOU CRAZY?" Hot Pie demanded, his voice high pitched and cracking.

"Pretty much," Gendry said darkly, gunning the engine and they sped off down the road, the lights of Renly's house visible through a small thicket of trees.

They raced down the road, and when Gendry glanced in his rearview mirror, he could see Joffrey running behind them at an inhuman speed.

"Well we know one thing for certain," Gendry shouted at Hot Pie. "They definitely are vampires."

"Oh how reassuring," Hot Pie said weakly as Gendry pulled into Renly's drive, his tires screeching.

"Get out of the car and run for the house!" Gendry shouted, but Hot Pie was already up and slamming the door, running for the house and screaming.

Gendry leapt from the car and raced around to Arya's side, grabbing her arm and dragging her out. She seemed to be trying to struggle, her actions feeble and sloppy, but when Gendry tried to carry her, she wriggled out of his arms.

"No Arya, it's fine!" Gendry said desperately, clutching at her as she struggled. "Stop! I'm going to get you to safety! I'm not going to hurt you!"

"I'm... Going... To... Kill..." She gasped, clawing her way towards the beginning of the driveway.

"Stop!" Gendry cried, grabbing her around the middle. "Arya-"

"Arya Stark."

They both froze to see Joffrey walking up the driveway as casual as you please, easily resetting the bones in his hand. There was a sick sort of grin on his face.

"I think you'll forgive me if I say you've looked better," he said cockily, striding onto the lawn and then stopping, giving her a simpering look. Arya growled, and Gendry could tell she was trying to phase, but the drugs and her wound were preventing her. "Aww, what's this? Can't you turn into the big bad wolf?"

"You're paying for my car, jackass," Gendry snapped, still trying to drag Arya into the house. Where the fuck was Hot Pie with his crosses when you needed him?

"You," Joffrey said, narrowing his creepy little eyes at Gendry. "I thought you were supposed to be killing her? Looks like you've made a botched job of it, but that's not surprising. Your whole life is sort of a botched job, isn't it?"

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" Arya screamed, wrenching against Gendry with force. Joffrey laughed.

"No," he said coldly. "I'm going to kill you."

Gendry's heart stopped.

"What's going on here?"

Gendry let out a sigh of relief and turned to see Renly striding down the drive, a bag in his hands. A bag that looked like a garbage bag. Was everyone totally worthless?

"Go back inside," Joffrey snapped. "This doesn't concern you."

"Umm, actually it does because you're standing on my lawn," Renly said. "Get off."

"Don't tell me what to do, mortal," Joffrey said, advancing. "I could snap your neck like a twig."

"I guess you didn't hear me correctly," Renly said, reaching in the bag and then pulling out an enormous cross bow. "Get off my lawn. Motherfucker."

Joffrey took a step back, the smirk wiped off his face.

"Look," Renly said, "I just mowed it, all right? Now my lawn is my business, and you're up in my business. I really don't appreciate that, so... I'm giving you ten seconds, and then I'm shooting one of these arrows, and I assume you know a specially designed arrow when you see it?"

Joffrey gulped.

"Yup. That's right," Renly said in a low voice. "You'll be dead in seconds, so why don't you not tempt me and get off my lawn?"

Joffrey took another step back, glaring.

"Don't think this is the end, Stark," he spat.

"Oh no," Arya snarled thickly, "not until you're dead, you little two-faced twat!"

Renly raised the cross bow, and Joffrey skirted away, darting into the night and then disappearing down the road. They all watched him go, Arya struggling sluggishly against Gendry and then collapsing in his arms, exhausted. Renly turned to Gendry, eyebrows raised.

"Whatever this is," he said slowly, "you better have a damn good explanation."

Gendry grimaced.

"I'm working on it," he said.

**For the car scene, I listened to 'everybody dance now' and I felt like that was appropriate music**


	6. Help from Highgarden

**Two Gendry POV's in a row... I wanted to do the Arya POV, but since she's so sick in this chapter, it's illogical. **

"Whoa this is so sick," Hot Pie said in awe from the doorway once Joffrey had disappeared from sight. "I feel like I've just stepped into a Clint Eastwood movie."

There was a moment of silence, and then Renly and Gendry both turned to gave him an indignant look.

"Let's just get back inside," Renly said. "I don't want more of _that_ showing up."

Gendry nodded, no need for Renly to explain. He didn't want to see anymore vampires for a very long time. Arya was slack, half in his arms and half sprawled on the ground, obviously exhausted. Grunting, he scooped her up, just as he had the night he met her, only this time, thankfully, she was fully clothed. She looked smaller here, somehow. Maybe it was because she was shaking so badly. He noticed that the black stuff was bleeding through the protective gauze and his t-shirt and sweatshirt.

He followed Renly back inside, through the doorway where Hot Pie was standing. After they were all inside, Renly closed the door and locked it, bolting it as well.

"We shouldn't be bothered by them for the rest of the night," Renly said, ushering Gendry and Hot Pie into the living room. "The house has certain... Protections. We'll be safe for the rest of the night, and then the day, because... Well the whole daylight thing."

"Vampires can't go out in the daylight," Hot Pie said knowledgeably.

"Yes I know that, dumbass," Gendry snapped, gently laying Arya down on the couch before Hot Pie could claim it.

"She looks really bad," Renly said, frowning as Arya curled away from them and into a ball, her body trembling in a fevered sleep. "What did you shoot her with? Not a silver bullet. She'd be dead then."

"No," Gendry admitted. That would have been the cleaner way to do it, but silver bullets were expensive, money he didn't have, and he was a shit shot. '_So I shot her with an arrow instead. Bang up job there Gendry.' _"Err... I shot her with one of those wolfsbane arrows you gave me, you know, just in case for emergencies."

"If you shot her with an arrow, why is she here?" Renly demanded. "Why isn't she dead?"

"Renly," Gendry said in a low voice. "That's Arya Stark."

"I know who she is," Renly said sternly. "Perhaps the question I should be asking is: why did you shoot her in the first place?"

"It's a long story," Gendry said, feeling his cheeks heat with embarrassment. How could he have been so stupid? "One we don't have time for. It's been a day, time is running out. If we don't do something fast, the infection will spread and poison her blood and then she'll be dead."

"So let me get this straight..." Renly said, and there was no denying the deep irritation growing in his voice. "You shot her, with a wolfsbane arrow, _purposefully, _and now you want _me_ to save her?"

"Errr..." Gendry said, chancing a look at Hot Pie.

"Don't look at me man," Hot Pie said at once. "I was coerced into this shit. Kidnapped, even. There's no way I'm helping you out here."

"Look," Gendry said, turning to Renly and taking a deep breath. "It was a mistake, all right? It was a mistake and I need to set it right. She'll die, Renly."

The last part came out as such a plea, that even Hot Pie looked surprised. Gendry couldn't help it. It just didn't seem fair. She had done nothing wrong, other than be what she was, Gendry could see that now. She wasn't the enemy, and even if she wasn't the victim, she wasn't bad. Wild, and maybe struggling with a bit of a control problem, but not bad. She didn't deserve what he had done to her.

Renly sighed, obviously torn.

"Besides, what about the treaty?" Gendry demanded. "Didn't we have some sort of peace agreement with the Starks?"

"Which you pretty much shot to hell, no pun intended," Renly said, looking down at Arya on the couch. It looked like someone had spilled ink on the spot in her side, though it didn't smell like ink. It smelled like something dying.

"Then shouldn't I make it right?" Gendry demanded. "Renly, you saw what's out there. The Lannisters... This means war, doesn't it?"

Renly didn't say anything, he just looked grave.

"I don't know what it means," he said softly.

"Do you remember, when we talked about vampires, and you said... You said that if there were vampires, then we were all basically fucked? Don't we need her? If for nothing else, then for fighting power?" Gendry pressed, feeling a sense of desperation. Renly didn't respond for a long moment.

"She's dangerous," he said finally.

"But she's not a bad person," Gendry said at once.

"She's not even a person," Renly said coldly.

"She's alone, Renly!" Gendry yelled. "She's got no one! Her Dad's just been murdered, I just shot her! For gods sake Renly, just make her better! Please!"

There was a long, empty silence. Renly let out a long sigh.

"I can't," he admitted finally.

Gendry felt his heart drop.

"No," he said hollowly, looking over at Arya, his insides twisting. "That's impossible. There's gotta be something you can do!"

"There isn't," Renly said apologetically.

Gendry curled his hands in fists, digging his nails into his palms. She would die. She would die alone and afraid and in pain, detached from her pack, broken. He had done this to her. This was all his fault. An unexpected surge of rage mingled with a feeling of malaise coursed through Gendry's veins, leaving him feel like he was bubbling up, but oddly empty.

He bit his lip to stop the pricking behind his eyes.

Guilt held him down like a weight.

"Please," he said, his voice thick. "You must know something."

Shock sprang into Renly's eyes, flickering across his face. Hot Pie looked equally dumbstruck. Obviously they hadn't anticipated this strong of an emotion. But it was murder, what he had done. Murder of someone who was blameless of the crimes she had been committed with.

"You're not making this easy," Renly said with a long sigh. "But... But there might... There might be someone who can help."

Gendry blinked, his head snapping up.

"Who?" He demanded. "Renly who?"

Renly looked pained.

"I want to convey to you how much I really do not want to do this," he said through gritted teeth.

"Look," Gendry said angrily, "I don't care if it's some sort of beast with fangs the size of machetes-"

"Not quite," Renly muttered. "But close."

"Renly I am dead serious," Gendry said through gritted teeth. "If you have someone, anyone, who can help her, please, _please_ just tell me."

Renly sighed and closed his eyes.

"The Tyrells," he said painfully. "We have to take her to the Tyrells."

"What's wrong with the Tyrells?" Gendry asked, completely nonplussed. "What... Loras... Isn't Loras your best friend?"

"It's a long story," Renly said in a tone that dictated that it would be a story they would not be discussing now. Gendry felt a slight struggle going on within him, but despite the fact that he sorely wanted to know what had happened between Renly and Loras Tyrell, he knew it would have to wait. Arya got worse and worse by the minute, and once the infection started to spread... They didn't have time to go through past squabbles.

"Do you think we'll be safe in the car? We really can't afford to wait for sunlight," Gendry asked hastily.

"Yeah, just let me get all the garlic you have," Hot Pie said earnestly. "We could string it on the hood of your car-"

"We," Renly said purposefully, "are NOT stringing garlic on the hood of my car, got that?"

Hot Pie nodded, eyes wide.

"They won't try anything again," Renly assured Gendry firmly. "I think the Lannisters, despite being very powerful, aren't stupid. They know a loosing fight when they see one. It's obvious Arya was very sick... They're probably just waiting for the wound to kill her off for them."

"Then we should prove them wrong," Gendry said, feeling a sort of determined purpose fill him as he leaned down and gently scooped Arya up, cradling her freezing cold body in his arms. "Let's go."

"Let me just get a few things," Renly said, about to hand Hot Pie the crossbow, and then thinking better of it and setting the bow down. "We'll be needing some things, just in case."

He disappeared and came back a few moments later with a backpack that seemed filled to the brim with something Gendry could not see. Without a word, Renly leaned down and scooped up the crossbow and then motioned for Hot Pie to lead the way out. After a moments pause, Gendry rolled his eyes and pushed past his pussy of a friend, being sure to step on Hot Pie's foot in the process.

"Errm oww?" Hot Pie winced, but Renly just snorted with laughter.

The car was in the garage, so there was no fear of attack there. After some arguing, Gendry took the backseat with Arya, while Hot Pie sat next to Renly in the front. Once everyone was all buckled in, and Gendry had the crossbow laying across his legs, just in case, Renly started up the car, and backed out (perhaps a bit more hastily than he would have) and then drove down the driveway and sped down the road.

Gendry didn't know where the Tyrells lived, but the drive was a long one. Not more than an hour, or maybe much shorter than he perceived, but every second seemed to drag on and on, and it felt like they weren't going fast enough, and at any moment the infection would spread and it would be over. As Arya sat next to him, limp and unconscious, he tentatively reached out his hand and gave hers a squeeze. He didn't let go. For some reason it calmed him to be holding onto her. It let him know that she was still there, and not dead or gone.

At long last they pulled into an elegant looking drive way that lead to an even more elegant looking house. Even in the dark, Gendry could see that the place was literally loaded with flowers and plants. From the ivy that crawled up the brick walls of the house, to the fat and brilliant roses that crowded together at the door, Gendry thought it was no wonder that the Tyrells had nicknamed it 'Highgarden.'

In all haste they parked, and Gendry yet again picked up Arya, rushing to the door and ignoring his uncle, who seemed to be very fascinated with how his shoes were to be tied and Hot Pie, who didn't want to get out of the safety of the car.

Even though it was probably three in the morning, Gendry ignored this awkward factor and banged his fist against the door, and then rang the doorbell. By the time he heard annoyed voices muffled behind the door, Renly had finally made his way to standing next to him.

The lock clicked and the door opened, revealing a very sleepy looking Loras Tyrell who blinked at them with blurry eyes, and then zeroed in on Renly, who smiled sheepishly.

"Bitch," Loras snapped, and then he slammed the door in their faces.

There was a moment of silence.

"I would say I told you so," Renly said, "but then again, I just basically did."

"What did you do?" Gendry demanded.

"It's-"

But Renly was cut off by the fact that the door was being wrenched open, but this time it wasn't only Loras, but a very pretty young woman who looked a good deal like him. That, Gendry guessed, was Margaery, Loras's younger sister.

"Renly!" She exclaimed, beaming at them. "It has been a while, hasn't it? But it's so good to see you! A bit of a weird hour, I might add-"

"Yeah fuck off you prick!" Loras snapped, trying to shut the door, but Margaery was preventing him.

"Loras be quiet," Margaery chided, slapping her brothers hand off the door. "You're such a child. Is this your nephew, Renly?"

She smiled at Gendry, who found himself momentarily speechless.

"Err yeah..." Renly said awkwardly. "Loras-"

"Don't talk to me."

"Look-"

"No," Loras said, his voice rising, "you don't get to come back here and start being all Mr. Nice guy, okay? You were the one who dumped my ass, and then wouldn't even allow me to reveal our relationship to your girlfriend, who so happened to be my SISTER!"

"Well that was unexpected," Gendry muttered under his breath.

"I told you a million times, I don't care," Margaery huffed. "Renly and I were more like friends anyway."

"You know full well that I wasn't ready to come out-"

"BULLSHIT!"

"EXCUSE ME!" Gendry roared over the arguing. "While I must admit there are certainly a lot of questions going around in my head right now, we've got a situation that needs attending to NOW, and apparently only you can help me!"

"Yes of course!" Margaery said, ushering them inside, Hot Pie leaping out of the car and towing in after them. "It smells like a wolfsbane infection to me."

"Yeah that's what it is," Gendry grunted, allowing Margaery to lead him into the living room. She motioned for him to put Arya on the couch.

"Oh my god!" Margaery gasped as Loras turned on the light. "But that's Arya Stark!"

"You shot Arya Stark with an arrow?" Loras asked, looking at Gendry's obvious guilt. "I see stupidity runs in the family."

"Shut up Loras, this is serious!" Margaery said, sinking to her knees next to Arya and examining the wound, her face suddenly ashy. "This is bad."

"But you can help her, right?" Gendry asked desperately. Margaery's face was stony.

"I don't know," she sighed. "But I hope for all our sake's I can."


	7. Witches, Werewolves, Vampires and shit

**This was going to be a crazy long chapter, but then I decided to split it into two.**

Arya was trying to run, but everything was black. Maybe not entirely black, per se, but the world around her was sort of oozing. A melded blend of dark colors, not unlike the appearance of a bad bruise. Every step she took seemed to take her three steps back, and yet... She knew she had to keep moving. There was something that was telling her that if she stopped, then everything would stop. Then it really would be blackness.

Suddenly, a small hole of light opened up, and she couldn't tell if it was far away, or very close, but suddenly it was swirling, opening like a great big mouth, and it was swallowing her, wind rushing against her. She squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them, the world was white, not black.

Her skin glowed, a transparent porcelain, and she could see every vein pulsing blue with blood beneath the thin layer pulled across her flesh. She could hear her heart beating too, loudly, far more loudly than it should. There was a strange smell in the air, and then something fell against her lashes, and then drifted downwards. Perplexed, Arya bent down and picked it up. It was a blue petal of some sort of flower, and as she looked down, there were more and more petals landing on the ground.

Her heart began to beat louder, and louder still, and Arya realized that she should know these petals, and she did. They were wolfsbane.

She stumbled backwards, throwing them off, but already her skin was breaking out in horrible, ugly blisters, the flowers beginning to ooze together, as if melting. But they didn't melt blue, like their shade, but red. Blood red.

Arya began to panic, trying madly to wipe away the blisters that were spreading down her arms like wild fire; but when her hand rubbed over them, they burst, and her hands came away bloody. She screamed, stumbling back, sloshing in the melted petals, which were rising higher and higher so that the liquid reached around her ankles. Stumbling, she fell, and tried desperately to scramble to her feet, but her arms were so weak that she couldn't manage to lift her body.

She started to cry. The blood that ran from her arms was starting to bleed black, and she felt a gurgling in her throat, and when she spit, that was black too. She was going to die. She was going to-

There was a sound of wet foot falls and the mixture sloshed against her. Arya looked over to see feet clad in boots walking towards her slowly, and when she looked up, she saw it was Gendry. Relief washed over her, but only for a moment.

Slowly, mechanically, he pulled out a crossbow and then, looking at her with dead eyes, shot an arrow straight through her chest.

Her eyes snapped open.

Everything was blurry, and she was cold and shaking, but when she was able to move her head and look at her arm that lay sprawled out over a clean white mattress and blue sheets, it was not covered in blisters drained in blood. '_It was just a dream_,' her mind informed her nobly, her muscles quaking with relief. She could breathe again.

"Arya?"

She looked up, frowning, and there was Gendry standing over her, a look on his face that she couldn't quite place. Remembering how he had shot her with an arrow, she lifted up a feeble arm, her hand reaching for his face. A loopy grin formed at his lips that was quickly smacked off with a slap.

"Prick," she grumbled, rolling over onto her good side, still exhausted.

"She's awake!" He cried. "And she's fine! She knows who I am!"

"Ugh," Arya groaned, her mouth tasting unbelievably foul. She stuck her tongue out but that didn't help much. "Where am I? Why is this entire room blue and white?"

"Highgarden, we like to call it," an unfamiliar female voice said, and Arya rolled onto her back to see that the voice belonged to a brown haired young woman who was smiling at her. "And I like to coordinate my colors. It's rather refreshing, don't you think?"

"Who are you?" Arya snapped distrustfully, eyeing the tray the woman was caring with distaste. The brown haired woman raised an eyebrow.

"Margaery Tyrell," she said, setting the tray down, which happened to have a good deal of attractive looking toast and biscuits on it, along with tea that did smell very appetizing. Was that jam as well?

"Margaery's the one who's responsible for you being alive," Gendry said with a frown, obviously not approving of Arya's irate behavior.

"I've just been shot with an arrow," Arya said, "twice, actually... And anyway, if there's any time to be irritable, it's now don't you think?"

Gendry and Margaery shared a look and shrugged, as if mutually agreeing that this was fair.

"Well I'm sure you'll be hungry," Margaery said with a smile, nudging the tray towards her.

"I am," Arya said with a frown, snatching up a bit of toast and nibbling on it before shoving it in her mouth, munching loudly. "Why am I so hungry?"

"Nice," Gendry said sarcastically, and Arya made a face at him, causing a bit of toast to fall out of her mouth. He just shook his head.

"Happens with wolfsbane poisoning," Margaery said with a shrug, sitting at the edge of the bed. "Wolfsbane in itself cuts off the appetite while sucking away at the nutrients in the body. Such occurrences cause powerful hallucinations."

Arya shuddered visibly, taking a sip of tea.

"Powerful is an understatement," she muttered darkly, grabbing a biscuit and smothering it with jam. Gendry gave her a look as she shoved it in her mouth. "What?"

"You're disgusting," he informed her, but he was chuckling.

"I'm hungry! And you shut your mouth," she grumbled through crumbling biscuit, "you were the one who shot me, might I remind you!"

"Point taken," Gendry said, sighing.

"How are you feeling?" Margaery asked, reaching out and feeling Arya's forehead. "Still clammy. Hmm. You'll be feeling weaker for a little bit, but you should have no trouble phasing, though I recommend laying off of that for at least a couple of days. Your pulse is fine though, which is good. It slowed to a crawl last night. A normal person would be dead, of course, but thank the gods you're not. I can only imagine what a dead Stark would mean."

"Who are you exactly?" Arya asked as she took another gulp of tea. Margaery grinned.

"A witch," said Gendry with a bit of amusement.

"That's not very nice," Arya snapped at him. He laughed, and so did Margaery.

"No need to defend me," Margaery said. "Gendry's right, though I like the term 'magical consultant' much better."

"Yeah because that sounds waaay cooler," Arya said sarcastically. Margaery frowned. "I didn't know there were witches. Please don't tell me there are wizards."

"Hot Pie's still geeking out about it," Gendry said. "He keeps asking Loras if there's a Hogwarts."

"Who's Loras?" Arya wanted to know.

"My brother," Margaery said. "Practicing magic sort of runs in the family. We've been doing it for ages, actually. First it used to be a whole power thing, but now it's just to help out with stuff that happens in the... Errr... Supernatural world."

"Like when people shoot werewolves with arrows," Arya said, throwing an accusing look at Gendry.

"Exactly," Margaery said blithely. "Though, to be honest, that doesn't really happen all that often."

"You amaze me," Arya said sarcastically, taking another bit of toast. "How were you able to stop the infection?"

"That," Margaery admitted, "wasn't all me, truth be told. I was able to halt the course of the infection by actually adding wolfsbane into the wound, but that didn't mean that the wound would necessarily heal. The fact that your side is all healed is due to my brother."

"Loras?" Arya guessed.

"No, though I'm sure he'd take the credit if he could," said a voice from the doorway. It belonged to a man who looked similar to Margaery, but perhaps less fair, and older. He looked scholarly, with glasses, and he had a cane that supported him and a brace on one of his legs. "I'm Willas, the oldest of the Tyrell brood."

He smiled and shuffled into the room, leaning down and extending a hand to Arya.

"Willas is the best at this sort of thing," Margaery said, smiling at her older brother, who shook his head.

"That's only because I have so much free time," he said. "When you're lame in one leg, sometimes you find yourself indoors more often than you'd like to be. I had a lot of time to study."

"Well thank god you did," Margaery said with relief. "Or we'd be in a very different predicament."

"Indeed," Willas said gravely, looking at Arya with a crinkled brow. "This is a very serious situation, isn't it?"

"So you've heard about the vampires then?" Arya said, chancing a look at Gendry. He nodded.

"I told them everything you told me," he said. "And then some. Do you remember Joffrey utterly destroying my car?"

"So that did happen," she sighed. She had been wondering.

"Yes," Gendry muttered through gritted teeth. "Unfortunately."

"I can't say it's surprising," Willas said, sharing a look with Margaery. She nodded.

"Actually, we've been wondering for some time now," she admitted, "but obviously we couldn't investigate, because if they were... Well then it would be very bad, and if they weren't..."

"They'd be wondering why you came bearing gifts of garlic cloves?" Arya asked. Gendry gave a suppressed snort of laughter.

"Something like that," Willas said with a raised eyebrow.

"Well then why didn't you at least warn us? Doesn't that seem a bit important?" Arya demanded, feeling anger flare within her. If they had only told them... Maybe her father would still be alive.

"We didn't want your father... To... Well..." Margaery said haltingly. "Well, he'd confront Cersei, wouldn't he? And we didn't want to risk it, because if she really was what we suspected..."

"She'd kill him," Arya said stonily.

There was a moment of silence, an awkward silence, where everyone shifted uncomfortably. No one knew what to say, so Arya would have to say something. Silence made her want to scream.

"Does this mean war?" She asked the room at large.

"I don't know," Willas said with a serious frown. "If it was war..."

"Then they would have made a move by now, don't you think?" Margaery said, frowning as well. "They have the advantage, why not press it? But it's been days... And silence."

"Yeah nothing," Gendry said, shooting Arya a look.

"It's been days?" Arya blinked, surprised. "How long was I out?"

Margaery smiled warmly.

"A while," she admitted.

"It takes the body time to heal after being so close with death," Willas informed Arya. "Sleep is the only way it can heal properly, without any bodily strain to halt the course of the process."

"So a while," Margaery said, rolling her eyes, "which is what I said. She doesn't need a recitation from, '_A Study in Wolfsbane.'_"

"That sounds like a fascinating read," Gendry said, winking at Arya, who snorted, inhaling her tea. Then she frowned. It was odd, them making jokes like that. They weren't friends. In fact, they barely knew each other. If she should be anything towards him, it was mistrustful. True, he saved her life, but... Well she wouldn't need saving if he hadn't shot her with an arrow, would she?

"Trust me," Margaery said, "it wasn't."

Willas looked put out.

"You didn't even read it," he said. Margaery shrugged.

"Who needs to read when they have you?" She said sweetly, batting her eyelashes at her brother, who looked thoroughly annoyed.

"I believe we were talking about something serious?" He snapped. That sobered everyone up.

"But then if I've been out all this time..." Arya said, putting the jumbled pieces together. "And you say they haven't done anything?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"Though something odd did happen," Willas pointed out. "Jaime Lannister disappeared."

"Did he?" Arya couldn't help feel hope bubble up inside her. "Was it Robb? Is he preparing for a fight?"

"I don't know," Willas said again, sharing a look with Margaery. "He hasn't tried to contact us... And our efforts to inform him that you are in our care have failed."

"Did you try calling him?" Arya asked.

"No we decided to use a magical fireplace," Margaery said sarcastically. Arya glared.

"With Robb's silence and silence from the Lannister's end, the only possible conclusion I've come to is that both sides are planning something," Willas said, as if sensing danger. "And I think we'd be wise to focus on what the Lannisters are planning."

"But shouldn't we try to find Robb?" Arya asked, panicking slightly. "He needs me! The pack's not as strong when we're not all together."

"Exactly," Margaery said. "We've all been talking... And we think it's a good idea that we focus on a different member of your family."

"What?" Arya asked, confused.

"I believe your sister is still in Lannister control?' Willas reminded her gently.

"Sansa?" Arya asked, feeling extremely let down and angry at the same time. "Why worry about her? She wants to be there!"

"I think she hardly wants to be with the people that murdered her father," Gendry said, and when Arya looked at him, his expression was dark.

"What's important now," Willas said, plowing on, "is research. If we're going to get her out, we have to do it right. There is no room for mistakes."

"That's what we've all been doing while you got better," Margaery interjected. "It's been incredibly boring-"

Willas hit her with his stick.

"- But also _very_ enlightening. Oww."

"If you'd like, you can join us," Willas said. "Unless you'd prefer to stay in bed?"

"No," Arya said hastily, feeling a twinge of guilt about her reaction to rescuing Sansa. "I'd like to help."

"Good," Willas said, standing. "It would be preferable though, if you didn't walk. Not yet. You need to save your strength."

"I'll carry her," Gendry offered quietly, his eyes flicking to Arya. He still looked angry with her. Well that was stupid. Who was he to even judge her for a second? He had shot her with an arrow for all the bloody gods sake!

He walked over to her bed and scooped her up like she was nothing, blankets and all (Margaery diving for the tray in the process). Drowning in her down comforter, her legs flopping out, Arya watched as Willas led the way out of the room, and then down a set of lavender colored stairs. They passed the front room, which was stocked to the brim with flowers, no vase left empty, and then into a small study.

"This is it?" Arya asked. Willas laughed.

"Hundreds of years of family history and you think this is it?" He said with a chuckle. "Well... It would be if Margaery wrote it."

"I resent that!"

Chuckling, Willas reached out and pulled a book from the shelf. But it wasn't a book. There was a tremendous, rumbling click of what sounded like a thousand locks, and then the bookcase was pulling back and sliding to the right. There were a set of stairs that Willas beckoned them to follow him down.

Arya gasped aloud.

"Holy shit."

Gendry chuckled against her.

"You should have seen Hot Pie."

They followed Willas through the secret door and into the biggest and coolest library Arya had ever seen. It was massive, curved, with rows upon rows of books. It was just as she would have imagined it. Cobwebbed, yet perfect, with deep maple paneling and spiraled staircases. The books reached to the ceiling, which domed at the top, the roof made of glass, sunlight pouring through. There were tables covered with bottles and bones and disgusting looking liquids, books sprawled open, notes written on the pages.

"It's like "Beauty and the Beast' with a 'Hocus Pocus' twist," Arya said in awe. Gendry laughed again.

"GUYS! GUYS THIS IS SO FUCKING COOL!" Hot Pie's head appeared over one of the bannisters on the upper level. "THERE'S A BOOK IN HERE THAT TELLS YOU HOW TO INCREASE THE LENGTH OF YOUR-"

"Ahh she's awake!" Loras said, looking extremely haggard, as he walked towards them. "Finally."

"HEY LORAS! HEY! DOES HOGWARTS HAVE WIFI?"

"I don't even know what he's talking about," Loras said, looking ready to strangle Hot Pie. "But I assume it's from a book."

"Yeah it is," Arya and Gendry said at the same time. Again. She hoped they weren't going to be making a habit of it.

"So far," Willas said, "we've complied a lot of data that might be useful."

"Like vampires weaknesses and strengths," Margaery said, "and how to kill them and yada yada."

"And the blueprints for the house they currently live in," Renly said, walking up from somewhere in the depths of the library. "Which will come in handy, I think."

"The problem is getting in," Margaery said with a frown as Renly tossed her the blue prints. She swiped some bottles off the table carelessly and set the blue prints down. Renly pulled up a chair and Gendry set Arya in it so that she could see what was going on. "Which is why-"

"No," Willas, Loras, and Renly all said at once. "Absolutely not."

"Will you all be quiet?" Margaery snapped. "I'm perfectly capable of handling myself!"

"Umm I'm missing something here," Arya said.

"Stupidity," Margaery said darkly. "As if I couldn't handle myself against a couple of vampires."

"You say it like it's similar to taking out the garbage," Willas said, scandalized.

"You can't even deal with a gopher," Loras pointed out.

"In my defense," Margaery said, "that thing had some pretty lethal chompers and a psychotic death wish."

"And is anyone else seeing the parallels here or is it just me?" Renly said, just as protective as all her brothers. "Margaery, you can't just waltz into a horde of blood thirsty vampires and expect to live to tell the tale!"

"Yes I can," Margaery said with a frown. "I mean, obviously I'd have to be sneaky about it, but... Well... Joffrey can't be to found of Sansa at this point..."

"NO!" Willas shouted. "ABSOLUTELY NOT!"

"Margaery are you serious?" Renly said. "Doesn't that sort of border on pedophilia? He's like what, thirteen?"

"Eighteen," Margaery snapped.

"Oh yeah, let's just ignore the fact that that little shit ripped out Ned Stark's throat!" Loras rounded on Renly.

"Obviously I wasn't-"

"SHUT UP!" Margaery, Loras, Gendry and even Hot Pie all shouted. It was clear that this arguing between the two had been going on for sometime.

"Margaery I'm putting my foot down," Willas said sternly. "And don't even think about making any cane jokes."

"You insult me."

"I agree," Loras said. "No good cane come of this."

Willas glared and Margaery made a strangled coughing sound that strongly resembled a snort of laughter.

"Sorry," Loras said innocently. "Slip of the tongue."

"I'm sure," Willas said coldly. "But forget Margaery's plan. We're not doing it. It's far too dangerous."

"Fine," Margaery said sassily, crossing her arms over her chest. "So then what's the plan?"

There was silence, and she smirked.

"I agree with Margaery," Arya spoke up, and everyone jumped. She supposed they had quite forgotten her.

"Well thank god someone has sense," Margaery said in relief.

"It's the only way we can get inside access without arising suspicion," Arya said firmly. Gendry and Willas exchanged looks.

"I... I don't think you'll be so receptive to Margaery's whole plan when you hear all of it," Gendry said.

"Why?" Arya demanded, and for the first time Margaery looked apprehensive.

"First, you should know that Cersei's been put in police custody on the suspicion of murder," Willas said gravely.

"Good," Arya snarled vindictively. Then what were they looking so on edge about? She was certainly shedding no tears over it.

"Secondly," Loras said, "we don't just you know... Study the supernatural."

"No because we'd be broke if we did," Margaery said.

"We're lawyers," Willas said. "The best this county has to offer, not to flatter myself too much."

"And...?" Arya asked, having a feeling she was about to get very angry.

"Well... To really get in with the Lannisters and save your sister, we'd have to gain their total trust," Margaery said apprehensively.

"And?" Arya demanded.

"What Margaery's saying is we need to prove Cersei innocent," Willas said with a sigh.

**I made the Tyrells supernatural consultants cuz I figured their thing was flowers, and flowers and herbs and stuff must equal witches right? I hope you guys know that I'm doing this all in good fun and it shouldn't be taken too seriously (kind of like Buffy the Vampire slayer). Humor alongside badassery.**


	8. Pillow Talk

**This is just a continuation of the last chapter, still in Arya's POV**

**Arya**

"WHAT?" Arya roared, instantly furious.

"Thank you Willas," Margaery said sarcastically. "Thanks a lot."

"YOU CAN'T!" Arya shouted. "SHE DESERVES IT! SHE'S NOT INNOCENT!"

"Technically, she is," Margaery said, "and furthermore, prison is the last place we want Cersei. Without blood... Well she'll go berserk won't she? And the last thing any of us need is to have her going on a huge bloodbath spree."

Margaery had a point, but Arya wasn't about to listen.

"IT DOESN'T MATTER IF SHE DIDN'T ACTUALLY DO IT!" She yelled at Margaery. "SHE AND JOFFREY KILLED MY DAD! THEY KILLED HIM!"

"Yes I know," Margaery said softly. "But Arya, even if Cersei was sentenced to death, it wouldn't kill her. Only exposure to sunlight, stakes and holy water have any effect of vampires."

"And garlic," Hot Pie interjected from above. "And crosses."

"Garlic is actually an urban myth," Margaery snapped. "All it does is makes you stink, which, trust me, you have no problem with."

Hot Pie promptly disappeared back over the railing, looking thoroughly insulted.

"The only way we can kill her is to prove she's innocent," Margaery said earnestly. "Once we have her in our trust, we can do anything."

Arya put aside her anger for an instant and thought about it. The thing was, Margaery was right. Cersei in prison was almost worse than Cersei walking around free. Besides, what if Margaery was right? What if Cersei really did go on a massive killing spree in her blood crazed state? Then how many people would Arya be condemning to death out of pure spite? No... Margaery was right.

"We need to prove her innocent," Arya said with stony conviction. "Margaery's right. It's the only way."

"Really?" Margaery asked, shocked. She recovered quickly. "I mean, yeah! Really! See? Wolf girl backs me up!"

"Please," Arya said slowly, "can we please kill this nickname here and now?"

"It's too dangerous," Willas insisted, ignoring Arya. "Margaery I can't let you just walk in-"

"I won't just walk in though!" Margaery snapped, getting to her feet and slamming her fist into the table. "Listen you lot, these are vampires, all right? This is real shit, and we've got to deal with them right away before they plan something and get ahead of us. We've got to do something before it's too late."

There was silence as Margaery looked desperately around the table for approval.

"She's right," Gendry said softly. "Renly, you saw what they did to my car. We're not safe here, even in Highgarden. Once they know she's here, they'll be coming."

Renly looked torn.

"I'm a grown woman," Margaery said to her brothers. "I can take care of myself. Besides, I won't be alone."

"You won't?" Loras asked with a frown.

"No," Margaery said. "I'll have grandmother."

Her brothers exchanged looks.

"Fine," Willas said, "if grandmother's in, then I'm in."

"Are you kidding?" Loras asked drily. "Taking down a coven of vampires? It'll be like Christmas has come early.

oooooooooOOOOOOooooooo

Arya went to bed early that night, after lots of protesting of course. In the end, Gendry had to carry her again like a sack of potatoes, whining all the way, until he deposited of her in her bed.

"Stay," he had said firmly.

"What am I?" She had wanted to know. "A dog?"

He left without answering.

Truth be told, she was utterly exhausted. Her side didn't feel like three million knives and needles, but it didn't feel all that hot either. She could feel her body trying to heal under the bandages, but the process wasn't as fast as it usually was. '_Damn wolfsbane arrows,' _she thought as she felt at her side, '_and damn Gendry Waters for shooting me with one.'_

Laying back against the plush and fluffy blankets, it was easy to let her mind wander. Sleep, like liquid syrup began to play with her mind until she melted into the bed and her eyes fluttered closed. She let the flood take her, exhausted.

She was walking down a hallway. It was dark, but there was a rug under her feet, soft with each foot fall. Her heart was beating very fast, and she knew that there was something bad at the end of the hallway, just as she knew that there was something bad about to happen. Her stomach kept twisting and twisting until she could scarcely breathe. She could hear voices, murmuring in the back of her mind, whispering from the corners of the hallway.

She needed to reach the end, where there was a light under the door, but the more she walked, the more it seemed like she wasn't moving anywhere. The crack of light remained at the end of the hallway, and the whispering remained whispering.

And then, suddenly, there was screaming, and she knew that voice, and she was running, hysterical, crying and sobbing and shouting his name, but not moving anywhere.

_"Dad! Dad! DAD! DAAAAAAAD!"_

Arya gasped, her throat seizing, her entire body covered with sweat and shaking, twisted and strangled in the sheets. There was a sense of relief that swept over her, a smooth, easy tingling, but then it jumped. Her entire body tensed, her hands gripping the sheets, her eyes wide, her mouth half open, not daring to breathe...

Someone was in the room with her.

She could hear the low breathing. She could smell him too.

There was a movement-

She exploded from the bed, transforming so rapidly that when she hit the intruder, she was no longer human. He toppled backwards with a crash and a yell, hitting the ground with a "GAHA!"

His head thwacked against the floor as they rolled into the stream of moonlight. His eyes were wide open. Blue.

Gendry lay beneath her, groaning in pain, his eyes wide open in obvious terror.

"Oh," she heard herself say. "It's you."

In her shock, she could feel herself phasing back, and quickly leapt off him, diving for a blanket. Gendry had seen her naked far more times than he ought to have, and it was something she decided needed to be cut down on. Even now, as she whipped a blanket around her, she felt her cheeks burning feverishly in the dark from utter humiliation.

Gendry had seen her naked.

It was enough to make her wish she never had to see him again.

"Note to self," Gendry muttered weakly, still on the floor, a bit muffled. "Never walk into a werewolf's room without knocking."

"Never walk into anyone's room without knocking," Arya snapped, peering over the end of the bed at him. He had the stupidest look on his face. "You scared me half to death."

"I scared you?" He snorted, looking slightly outraged. "How about you scared me? I just saw my life flash before my eyes. My heart's going a million miles a minute, look."

He pulled himself into sitting position and snatched her hand, placing it against his chest. He didn't have to. She could hear it. Beating wildly. And suddenly, as her fingers pressed into the soft fabric of his shirt, the heat of his blood and skin tangible beneath it, she felt her heart begin to beat wildly as well.

"See?" He said, sounding annoyed as he released her hand, completely oblivious to her sudden change in mood. "I'm likely to have a bloody heart attack."

"Err, sorry," Arya said, drawing her hand back and hiding it under the blanket. "It was sort of a reflex."

"Naw," Gendry said, waving her off as he clambered to his feet. "I'm the one who should be apologizing. Any idiot knows not to go into someone's room in the dead of night."

"Yeah, what _were_ you doing?" Arya asked suspiciously, tightening her blanket around her shoulders. For some reason Gendry's cheeks burned bright in the moonlight.

"You err... You were having a nightmare," he said, rubbing the back of his head. He did that, she noticed, whenever he felt uncomfortable. "You sort of cried out... I was just making sure you were okay."

"Oh," Arya said, suddenly feeling very small. "Yeah. Yeah I'm fine."

"You sure?" Gendry asked. "You were... You were sort of crying."

"Oh," Arya said, bringing her hand to her face to find it wet and sticky. She suddenly found that she couldn't meet Gendry's eyes.

There was a shift in shadows, and he sat down next to her, gently, and reached out a hand, placing it against her face. Tenderly, his thumb brushed across the top of her cheek, wiping away a tear that hadn't dried. Arya was reminded, for a fleeting second, of Jon, and how he would always comfort her when she was sad. But this felt different. Gendry was hardly her brother. He didn't seem to fit in that category.

"I'm sorry," he said in a raspy voice, clearing his throat awkwardly. "For shooting you, I mean. I was stupid, I know. But... I wasn't thinking clearly. It just all happened so fast. My Dad died, and then there was nothing, and I... I started getting caught up in the what if, if that makes sense. You know, like, what if he was about to stop drinking? What if he and I had finally gotten it together? What if he was there for me? What if..."

His voice trailed off as he stared into darkness, and Arya did something very uncharacteristic of her. She reached out and took his hand in hers.

"You dream about him, don't you?" Gendry asked softly, and there were tears in his usually harsh and reserved eyes. Tears that Arya knew would never fall. He was far too stubborn for that. "Your Dad."

Arya opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She wanted to just say the simple word of 'yes,' but suddenly she realized she couldn't... She just couldn't even talk about it. It hurt far too much. It hurt even when Gendry said it. The word hurt. '_Dad_.'

"I just see their faces," she said instead. "Cersei, Joffrey... Sansa..."

Gendry looked at her, his face sinking in with the shadows, half bathed in moonlight. Even in the dark his eyes shown blue.

"I can't sleep," she admitted. "When I do, I don't dream."

He seemed to understand.

"Would you... Would you like it, if I stayed?" He asked hesitantly. "I mean, I know I did just shoot you with an arrow a week ago, but..."

"You did shoot me with an arrow," Arya said, and for some reason this struck her as funny. She laughed.

"You almost died," Gendry said with a frown, so serious.

"Come on," Arya said, "you sort of have to laugh about it, or else it'll just get awkward."

Gendry seemed to mull this over, frowning.

"It's what we did with the whole werewolf thing," Arya explained, feeling a sense of relief wash over her now that they could talk about something without such a sharp edge. "You know, because if we didn't laugh about it... Well it would just get completely ridiculous, wouldn't it? It would just be too weird."

"It is too weird," he agreed, chuckling softly. "But I... I meant it, you know. If you'd like it."

Arya looked at him in the dark, and there was such an earnestness across his face that she felt like she might cry again. '_He's not so bad after all, is he?'_ She wondered, looking at him as if for the first time. Maybe he wasn't the one to have nightmares about.

"No," she said firmly. "I'm fine, really."

"Oh," he nodded. "Okay."

"Besides," she said, her face flaming hot and red in the pale light, "I'm... Well I'm sort of naked, you know."

Gendry's face exploded in a thoroughly impressive and ugly blush. Suddenly he was looking everywhere but her. There was no way the ceiling was that interesting. She would know. She had stared at it for a good deal before she went to sleep.

"Not that you haven't seen it before," she said quickly, and then mentally thwacked herself about the head several times as Gendry looked so uncomfortable he might have melted on the spot. She might have melted on the spot too.

"I think I should go now," he said, coughing.

"Yes please do that," Arya said hastily, gripping the blankets around her.

"We... We don't have to talk about this tomorrow," Gendry said, getting up.

"NO!" Arya cried with relief. "No we don't."

"It's forgotten," Gendry said with a quick shrug.

"Completely," Arya said, nodding vigorously.

"Well... Goodnight then," Gendry said very awkwardly, looking like he was going to hug her, and then he frowned, blushed an angry red, and left, shuffling out of the room. Arya looked after him and sighed.

"Goodnight," she muttered, flopping back against the bed and burying herself in blankets.


	9. The Naked Truth

**Gendry**

"Well fancy seeing you here."

Gendry's eyes sprang open, wrenching him from sleep and he jumped, a jerking jump that resulted in him thwacking his head against the wall it was leaning against. For a moment he was confused, and his entire body ached. Why was he on the floor in the middle of a hallway? And then he remembered. Arya.

Well... She'd been crying, hadn't she? And he heard her sobbing her Dad's name in her sleep... But then, instead of knocking like a normal person... And she had said she was all right... But he couldn't just leave her, could he? What kind of person left a crying sick girl all alone? He had thought, just in case she started crying again, he should wait outside. She must have been telling the truth when she said she was fine, because he apparently had fallen asleep, sprawled outside her room in the middle of the hallway.

Margaery raised an eyebrow, expecting an answer. Gendry looked up at her from his position on the floor and suddenly felt extremely stupid. '_I'll sound like an idiot,' _he decided instantly.

"I erm... I was..." He said, rubbing the back of his head, which did hurt more than it probably should, as he tried to rapidly come up with something that sounded remotely sane. "I... Err..."

"Were you spying on her?" Margaery asked, narrowing her eyes.

"NO!" Gendry shouted, maybe too loudly. "No I was... Checking to make sure... There were no vampires..."

That excuse, he decided, was stupider than the truth. But at the same time... Well he didn't want to tell Margaery that Arya had been crying. It seemed to him something that was private, and he knew she wouldn't want him to run around and have people feel sorry for her or think she was weak.

"Riiiiggght," Margaery said, looking thoroughly unconvinced. "Because we don't have protective charms on the house or anything, so no unwanted guests could even step on the grounds."

"Err..." Gendry could feel his face turning bright red.

"Don't worry about it," Margaery said, waving her hand at him. "You're worried about her, I get it."

"You do?" Gendry sighed with relief. "Oh okay great."

He tried, with limited success, to get to his feet, his bones popping in the process. He was definitely going to be sore. Heck, he already was. Margaery laughed.

"Next time you should just bring your mattress with you," she said with a giggle as Gendry tried to straighten his back and failed.

"Yeah I feel like I've taken a pounding," he said, cracking his neck. "Oww."

At that moment Arya's door wrenched open with a bang and Gendry and Margaery both jumped. As they did, the tray balanced on Margaery's hands tilted dangerously, and Gendry dove to catch it just in the nick of time.

"Whoa!" Margaery cried as he helped her steady it. "Thank you! Look at him, saving the day. He's such a gentleman."

Arya raised a very incredulous eyebrow, and for some reason she looked vastly irritated, her eyes darting from Gendry to Margaery and then narrowing. Gendry felt himself blush again. Maybe she had heard about him sleeping outside her room and worrying about her. She was probably cursing him in her head right now. He shuffled uncomfortably.

"Isn't he?" Margaery was saying blithely.

"Not exactly," Arya said in a very deadpan voice. "I don't know if you can call a guy who shot someone with an arrow a 'gentleman.'"

Gendry blinked, surprised. She really was very unamused, wasn't she? Hadn't they just been joking about the whole thing the night before? She had seemed perfectly fine then, well, despite the tears on her face, but she certainly hadn't been this hostile. She was _glaring _at him. What was that all about?

"I don't know," Margaery said, "last night he-"

"Margaery's brought you breakfast!" Gendry said hurriedly, cutting across her. The last thing he wanted was more of Arya's irritation. "And I've got to go shower."

He looked back Arya with a half smile, which was instantly wiped off his face when he saw the searing and incredibly frightening glare that she was giving him. What was her problem? Whatever it was, he had a feeling he should run. So he did, bowing out gracefully before making a beeline for his room.

Maybe it was the whole naked thing, he thought as he pulled his shirt over his head and started to run the shower water. Maybe she was really embarrassed. She had blushed pretty brilliantly that night, buried under her blankets. '_Maybe she thinks I'm making fun of her?'_ He wondered as he pushed off his pajama pants and boxers, stepping into the shower. Or maybe she had taken his embarrassed reaction badly. Girls did that, he knew. Maybe she thought that he had found her ugly.

He could have hit himself. He didn't want to assume... But he was probably the first boy to have seen her naked, which must have been traumatic enough, but given the circumstances... How could he have been so stupid? Especially now, in such a sensitive situation. He should have said something nice, something reassuring, but all he could do was stare at the ceiling and try very, very hard not to think about her naked.

As he washed his hair, he sighed. He really, from the depths of his heart, did not want to have this conversation with her. He wasn't very good at emotional things, and that night in her room had been the very perfect example of how incapable he was at handling emotional situations. Their relationship was awkward enough besides. How could he try to talk about her naked when they hadn't even gotten past the whole arrow thing?

He turned off the water and got out, drying himself, and then, towel looped around his waist, he padded to his dresser drawer. There hadn't been time to pack, so he had to use Willas, Loras and Margaery's brothers clothing. He had been too broad chested for both Willas and Loras's clothes, but Garlan, who lived down south, was still a bit bigger than he was, so Gendry had to loop his belts tight to keep them from sliding from his waist.

Today would be another day of research, he knew. It had been dull so far. Gendry wasn't one for studying, but maybe now that they had their new plan, things would get more interesting. They hadn't talked much about the whole thing, but Gendry knew that the Tyrell's grandmother would be coming some time that day, and from what he had gathered, they would be taking the planning orders strictly from her.

After he had wriggled into a gray t-shirt, Gendry went downstairs to snag some breakfast. Hot Pie was already down there, reading some book very intensely and stuffing his face with frosted flakes. When Gendry passed him, he barely looked up.

"How to increase the size of your... Nice," Gendry said sarcastically, reading over Hot Pie's shoulder.

"Hey man," Hot Pie said as he chewed, "when God places something like this in my hands, who am I-Who am _I_, to throw it away? Hmmm? No, my friend. As it says in the bible, 'what god giveths, so shalt thou take.'"

"Err, I'm pretty sure that was never in the bible," Gendry said, taking some toast and sitting down. "Just because you added some 'ths' in there and threw in a 'thou' doesn't necessarily make it biblical."

"You don't know, okay?" Hot Pie said, frosted flakes dribbling from his mouth. "You know what? You're probably just jealous because I found it first."

"Oh trust me," Gendry said, taking a bite of toast, "I've got nothing to hide."

"Lovely."

Gendry choked on his toast as Arya walked into the dinning room, a look of disgust on her face. He felt his own turn to flames as he coughed, cringing in embarrassment.

"Oh really? Have you measured or something?" Hot Pie asked, chomping on his cereal.

"HOT PIE!" Gendry hissed, choking on his toast again.

"What?" Hot Pie asked. Gendry threw his arms up in the air as if to say, 'hello?' Hot Pie's eyes flicked to Arya, and they widened in realization.

"Oh," he said as she stood in the doorway. He swallowed hard. "Err... Good morning?"

She scowled and stomped off towards to where the library was, where Renly, Loras and everyone else probably was. Gendry watched her go, cursing silently in his head. He was going to kill Hot Pie.

"Is a side effect of being a werewolf acting like you have your period 24/7?" Hot Pie said, looking after her.

"You're disgusting," Gendry informed him. "I'm glad you ate that two month old guacamole."

Toast abandoned, he got to his feet and took a sip of water before sending Hot Pie another annoyed look before turning to go after Arya.

"You're just jealous of the prowess I'll have as a lover!" Hot Pie shouted after him. "Mr. I-have-nothing-to-hide! That's what they all say!"

Gendry sighed. Today was clearly not his day, and Hot Pie, as per usual, was not really helping. '_He better start making cookies or something soon,' _Gendry thought to himself, '_or I might have to kill him.'_

He walked down the stairs and to the library, greeting Renly, who sat in a chair, pointedly on the opposite side of the library from Loras, who kept giving him furtive looks over the book he was reading. Gendry scanned the library, caught Margaery's eye, and, before he could even ask, she pointed upward, to the second story.

Gendry quickly climbed up the spiral staircase and looked around, spying Arya who was sitting off in a nook, a book titled _How to Kill Vampires_ propped between her legs. Taking a deep breath, and rehearsing what he wanted to say, Gendry strode towards her.

"What do you want?" She snapped, not looking up from her book. Gendry opened and closed his mouth like a fish. What was he supposed to say again? Oh right, something about the whole naked thing. Something nice.

"I don't think you're ugly," he blurted out.

Arya paused, raised her head from her book and then looked at him.

"You're an idiot," she said to him with an eyeroll, and then she turned back to her book.

'_That's it,'_ Gendry thought, '_I give up. I'm one hundred percent done.'_

He was about to tell her that, but there was a commotion down below, and he rushed to the balcony to see what was going on, Arya joining him a second later.

"Grandma's here!" Margaery squealed with delight, and she raced out of the library.

"That's early," Willas said, checking his watch and then following after her. "But she's nothing if not punctual."

Gendry and Arya quickly descended the stairs and followed everyone out of the library and through the house to the front door, the door bell shrieking continuously. Margaery quickly opened it.

"Why didn't you answer the door sooner? Has someone died?" An elderly woman asked with a look of searing disapproval. She was elegantly dressed in a pearl colored blazer and pencil skirt with pearls looped around her neck. "I've been standing here for ages. I thought I might die on this doorstep."

"Grandma!" Margaery said happily. "It's so good to see you, come in! I'm so glad you came!"

"Of course I came," the woman said, walking inside. "Killing vampires? It's as if you all finally read my Christmas list."

"It's good to see you, Grandma," Renly said amiably, grinning at her.

"That's Olenna Redwyne to you," she said sharply. "Don't think just because you used to practically live here that you get to call me that. And Loras told me all about what you did."

"That was ten years ago," Renly said weakly while Loras looked extremely smug.

"Well are we going to stand here all day and chat?" Olenna wanted to know. "There's a horde of vampires that have crossed the line. I say we get down to business and kill them."

**Now that it's october I feel like this story is even more appropriate**


	10. You Know You Want To

**Arya**

Arya awoke to the sound of muffled voices outside her door. She threw off her blankets to investigate, and then gave a squawk of horror to find herself completely naked, causing her to throw the blankets back on again. After the last night's emotional turmoil and confusion, she had fallen asleep, exhausted, without changing back into a clean pair of pajamas. She recovered for a moment and then leapt from the bed, blankets wrapped firmly around her, and fished around for a t-shirt and shorts before hastily putting them on.

She went to the door and heard a voice that sounded like Margaery saying, "... next time you should just bring your mattress with you."

Arya blinked in surprise and wrenched the door open to see the back of Gendry, who was massaging his neck.

"Yeah I feel like I've taken a pounding," he said. "Oww."

Arya's door banged against the wall, and Margaery and Gendry both jumped violently. There was a tray in Margaery's hands, and it looked like it was going to fall, but before Arya could jump out and save it, Gendry's hand was already catching it, steadying it in Margaery's arms. '_What's going on here?'_

"Whoa!" Margaery cried as Gendry's hand came up and took hold of her shaking arm. A very intimate gesture for two people who barely knew each other. What exactly _was_ going on here? "Thank you! Look at him, saving the day. He's such a gentleman."

Arya raised a very incredulous eyebrow. Had they been... Had they had sex? The very thought sent a strange twisting and thorny sensation wrench through Arya's core like fire, and she was surprised at the sudden flare of anger that burst within her. But it made sense. Their sudden, almost shared looks, and the dialogue that she had heard between them. And when she looked at Gendry, he blushed guiltily and looked away.

"Isn't he?" Margaery was saying blithely.

Isn't he what? Oh, Margaery had just called him a _gentleman. _It was the sort of thing that someone would say after a one night stand, wouldn't it? But then... But then if they had... If they had... Well then it would have had to be right after he went to Arya's room, wouldn't it? '_He tried to make me think that he cared, but well, I know better now, don't I?' _She curled her fingers into a fist.

"Not exactly," Arya said in a very deadpan voice. "I don't know if you can call a guy who shot someone with an arrow a 'gentleman.'"

"I don't know," Margaery said, "last night he-"

"Margaery's brought you breakfast!" Gendry said hurriedly, cutting across her.. "And I've got to go shower."

That was it. Guilty as charged. She might have been irritated, but now she was suddenly furious. But why? Maybe it was that stupid little half smile Gendry gave her that made her so angry. There was a flicker of fear that went across his face, and she couldn't help but be infinitely smug about it.

"I should take a shower," Gendry said hastily, as if sensing her accusatory glare. '_He knows I know, doesn't he?'_ She thought, glaring after him as he ran for cover down the hallway. She frowned. Why did she care so much anyway? It was almost logical, they were similar in age and Margaery was really pretty... But that, for some strange reason, just made it worse.

"What's up with him?" Arya asked grumpily, unable to stop herself, even though she was reciting in her head over and over that she didn't care. _SHE DIDN'T!_

"Oh something tells me he didn't sleep well last night," Margaery said, handing Arya her tray and looking as if she was having a private joke with herself. Arya sighed.

"Yeah thanks," she said, perhaps a bit too curtly, and then she retreated into her room, shutting the door behind her.

There was a pause, as Arya stared at her toast and eggs, and then she slammed her tray down on the desk, the twisting sensation fueling a fire within her, and a string of insults about Gendry that was probably miles long. '_Why do I care about him anyway?' _She thought, taking an aggressive bite of toast, ripping the bread with her teeth. '_I don't. He can shag whoever he wants. It makes no difference to me.'_

It didn't make a difference to her, she thought as she chomped her eggs to bits. She could care less. They could have a thousand attractive child for all she cared. Not that Gendry was attractive, because he wasn't. He wasn't attractive in the least. No. No he wasn't... He wasn't... Wasn't... Was. He was.

She groaned and flopped back on the bed, tossing her piece of toast dramatically and then regretting it and going to get it, brushing it off. She sat down with a loud huff instead and groaned again. What was wrong with her? She was being ridiculous. She decided she just needed to not think about it, or him, or any of it. Besides, this was all distraction. She needed to focus on her objective, and that was killing vampires. Just thinking about Joffrey and his smug little shit face made it easy to forget Gendry and focus her rage.

She was going to kill him. She was going to kill all of them. If killing them wasn't for revenge, then it would just be to stay alive. Kill or be killed, and she preferred the former. '_Those blond haired shits have another thing coming to them,' _she decided, gulping down her tea and then going to shower.

Gendry had stolen all the hot water, and she had screamed at the sudden rush of ice that spewed from the shower head, leaping from the shower in a panic, her foot catching on the edge of the tub, sending her sprawling, her naked body smacking with the floor painfully. Damn that insufferable black-haired idiot. He had something coming to him as well.

Wincing and half covered in soap, Arya rinsed off, wincing some more at the cold water, and then trudged to her room, her chest stinging painfully. This, clearly, was not going down in the book of fabulous days. She didn't know why it bothered her so much, his whole thing with Margaery. She also didn't know why she couldn't stop thinking about it.

Pushing her wet hair out of her eyes, Arya went to go find herself some clothes. Margaery had tried to shrink some of her old jeans, but even so... Margaery was much curvier than Arya was, and her clothes didn't fit all that well.

"I'll just go shopping for you sometime," Margaery had said with a wave of her hand, and Arya had tried to keep her protesting down to a minimum. Something told her that she and Margaery had very different fashion taste. Maybe it was the fact that everything Margaery wore was floral.

Sighing, Arya slipped on a plainish dress covered in blue flowers (Margaery really did have a thing for flowers) that hung on her skinny frame like a mop, but it beat the jeans that looked like old elephant skin, so she supposed that was a step up. Maybe Margaery shopping for her really wasn't that bad.

Sighing again, she shook her hair with her hand, swiping her side bangs across her face.

"As usual," she muttered at the mirror, "this is as good as it's going to get."

She exited her room and walked down the hallway, still fiddling with her wispy and tangled hair, and then lightly bounced down the stairs. She had already eaten, but she figured there was probably a sticky bun or something good to snag from the dinning room, so she decided to go there.

"...You don't know, okay?" Hot Pie's voice floated from the open door as she walked towards it. "You know what? You're probably just jealous because I found it first."

As Arya reached the door, she saw what they were talking about. That stupid book that Hot pie had found.

"Oh trust me," Gendry said, taking a bite of toast, "I've got nothing to hide."

"Lovely."

She hadn't meant to say it out loud, but honestly. They were worst than her brothers, and, with her present annoyance, it was just so easy to let this slide onto her list against Gendry. '_It's just because he's so full of shit,' _she decided, looking at him cringe. '_All his bullshit last night, about trying to comfort me when he really was just going to migrate to Margaery's room. He made me think he cared about my Dad...'_

Hot Pie said something, and Gendry yelled at him, snapping Arya out of her reprieve. Suddenly, for no reason at all, she felt an unexpected rush of hurt flood through her, and her eyes stung. She didn't want to be in the room a moment longer because the stinging was very close to what tears felt like, and she was not about to cry in front of Gendry. And crying in front of Hot Pie was just not ever going to happen, even if someone clamped her down to a chair and made her listen to Joffrey's YouTube covers for Justin Bieber's 'Boyfriend.'

"Oh," Hot Pie said, as if just noticing Arya. His eyes widened in terror and he swallowed hard. "Err... Good morning?"

She scowled and then stomped off, blinking rapidly and cursing herself for being so stupid. She wasn't the crying type, that was Sansa's whole thing. She needed to hit something, she decided. It was always so much easier back home, when she had her fencing and her brothers to mess around with when she was feeling blue. They always made her feel better, and now she didn't even know where they were.

She stalked into the library and past Margaery, climbing up the spiraled staircases and then grabbing her book that she had been reading the day before. There was a nook where the roof slanted off, and a tiny little window where sunlight streamed in, and she liked it best of all in the whole of the library.

Sitting down, she propped the book against her knees and began to read. She got lost in the world of stakes and sunlight and crossbows. What she wouldn't give for a good crossbow. Cersei would be dust within seconds. The thought was immensely satisfying.

There was a sound, and she looked out of the corner of her eye to see Gendry standing awkwardly, looking down at her.

"What do you want?" She snapped, not looking up from her book.

"I don't think you're ugly," he blurted out. He probably meant it as a compliment, but it was a backhanded one whether he meant it or not. Had Hot Pie, or someone else for that matter, said something about her looks that made Gendry think she felt ugly? She sighed. He had a lot to learn about girls. "You're an idiot," she informed him, but for some reason she felt herself biting back a smile. She wanted to be angry. He was an idiot, but... It did make her feel better, what he said. It reminded her of how awkward Jon was when she was upset. He always managed to say the wrong thing while trying to say the right thing, but in the end, it always made her laugh. Maybe he did that on purpose, to make her laugh. If he did, it worked.

A flicker of irritation flashed across Gendry's face, and he opened his mouth to say something, but there was a sound downstairs and he went to go investigate. Setting her book down, Arya did the same.

"Grandma's here!" Margaery squealed with delight, and she raced out of the library.

"That's early," Willas said, checking his watch and then following after her. "But she's nothing if not punctual."

Gendry and Arya quickly descended the stairs and followed everyone out of the library and through the house to the front door, the door bell shrieking continuously. Margaery quickly opened it.

"Why didn't you answer the door sooner? Has someone died?" An elderly woman asked with a look of searing disapproval. She was elegantly dressed in a pearl colored blazer and pencil skirt with pearls looped around her neck. "I've been standing here for ages. I thought I might die on this doorstep."

"Grandma!" Margaery said happily. "It's so good to see you, come in! I'm so glad you came!"

"Of course I came," the woman said, walking inside. "Killing vampires? It's as if you all finally read my Christmas list."

"It's good to see you, Grandma," Renly said amiably, grinning at her.

"That's Olenna Redwyne to you," she said sharply. "Don't think just because you used to practically live here that you get to call me that. And Loras told me all about what you did."

"That was ten years ago," Renly said weakly while Loras looked extremely smug.

"Well are we going to stand here all day and chat?" Olenna wanted to know. "There's a horde of vampires that have crossed the line. I say we get down to business and kill them."

OooooOOOOOOOOOooooooooo

Twenty minutes later they had the plan mapped out on the table, and Olenna was thoroughly unimpressed.

"What is this?" She snapped, poking her fingers at the paper in disgust. "You haven't even thought of a way to kill him yet?"

"Him?" Arya asked. "Aren't we going to kill them all?"

"And make it look like some sort of vendetta?" Olenna said with a raised eyebrow. "I think not. The last thing this family needs is a horde of vengeful vampires out for blood. We'd be vanquished in seconds."

"So no...?" Hot Pie made up and down movements with his hands cupped in a circle. Arya knew what he meant but it looked like-

"What sort of vulgar gesture is that supposed to be?" Olenna gasped in horror. "Young man, are you trying to replicate masturbation?"

Gendry choked so hard he went into a coughing fit, and Arya turned beat red in the face as she tried desperately not to burst into hysterical laughter. Everyone else looked like they were doing the same. Everyone except Hot Pie, that was.

"Staking!" Hot Pie cried, looking like he was going to faint. "You know, you like hold a stake and stab them in the... In the chest..."

Olenna's look was enough to burn even Cersei Lannister to the ground.

"Who is this cretin?" She demanded. "I want him out of my dinning room, and his hands off my oak table."

She closed her eyes and shuddered.

"Err... He's my friend," Gendry said with a cough, looking like he wasn't sure if he really wanted Hot Pie to have the title of 'friend.'

"Hmmm," Olenna said, giving Gendry a dubious look. "Well, to answer your question, which was thoroughly stupid, no. No staking. If we're going to do this, we do it right and make sure it can't be traced back to us, at least not definitely."

"Then what do you propose? We make them garlic bread?" Arya asked. Gendry made another choking noise.

"No," Olenna said thoughtfully, "but that's not such a bad idea."

"Don't you think it would be a little obvious?" Margaery said. "I mean, they're not stupid."

"No, but I'd wager I'm more clever," Olenna said with a wicked smile. "I'd say we get the boy, and I'd say... Well, put it this way: I'd say we poison his drink."

"Holy water?" Margaery said as if reading her grandmother's mind, suddenly smiling too. "Yes exactly my dear," Olenna said looking proud for a fraction of a second before she caught herself. "A nice dinner party, an elaborate toast. No one would be the wiser, and you really can't trace that back. How were we to know that holy water would kill the boy? And an autopsy, should they have the idiocy to want one, would come up with nothing."

"Other than the fact that his insides will be burned from the inside out," Loras said with a shrug.

"But if they ran tests it would only show up as water," Margaery argued. "Besides, Cersei wouldn't dare. It'd be far too dangerous. It could risk their whole exposure."

"That's brilliant Grandma," Willas said, mulling it over. "And Margaery's plan is a perfect cover. All we need is someone on the inside to get Sansa out while Cersei's distracted."

"I want to," Arya said at once. "She won't trust anyone but me."

"I don't really think that's a good idea, dear," Olenna said with a frown. "Cersei will smell your wolf blood the minute you come within two miles."

"But Arya's right, Grandma," Margaery said frowning, "Sansa's probably frightened out of her mind. She might trust us... But only so much. She needs her sister."

"There are ways too, of disguising her scent," Willas offered. "And perception charms for hiding her face, no offense intended Arya."

Arya shrugged. It would seem that today would be the day that her beauty would be called into question. Or, perhaps more accurately, how she viewed her level of good-lookingness. Either way, it just wasn't shaping up to be the best of days.

"I think it's inadvisable," Olenna maintained.

"I'd go with her," Gendry spoke up unexpectedly. "So, if anything went wrong... I could help..."

"Yeah you'd be really good at that," Arya said, meaning to tease him, but he only looked angry. Well fine, if he couldn't take a joke than fine.

"Should we vote on it?" Margaery asked. "After this Grandma, I swear we can go from a democracy to a dictatorship."

Olenna Redwyne remained unamused as Margaery called the vote, and everyone raised their hand in Arya's favor. Renly looked like he was uncertain, and Hot Pie just sort of shot his hand in the air and then shot it back down, as if terrified that Olenna would somehow skewer him for disagreeing with her. As it was, she did not, but merely gave them all a cold look.

"Very well," she said in graceful defeat, "but I don't want any funny business. I hear a she-wolf can be quiet tempestuous when provoked, and I want none of it. You're to stick to the plan, understand?"

Arya nodded.

"Good," Olenna said, "now let's get down to business."

The plan was far from simple. First, Olenna and Margaery plotted how to prove Cersei innocent. That digressed into a lengthy political argument amongst the Tyrells that lasted a solid hour, and didn't look like it was going to let up, so while Margaery and Willas quibbled over victim's rights, Arya decided it would be a good time to go get herself a snack. After all, lunchtime had already passed and her stomach was grumbling louder than she could growl.

She slipped out of the room and made her way to the kitchen. There had to be something good to eat, maybe some leftover prime rib from the night before...

"Were you telling the truth?"

Arya nearly jumped a foot and whipped around to see that Gendry had followed her into the kitchen. Her heart pounding slightly, she frowned at him.

"What are you talking about?" She asked, opening up the fridge and looking around.

"When you agreed to Olenna about no funny business... You were telling the truth, right? This isn't just some plan to get into the mansion and then go on a revenge killing spree?"

Arya turned around and crossed her arms over her chest.

"No I wasn't lying," she spat. "It just so happens that I actually care about my sister, crazy as it sounds!"

"Arya I know you-"

"No you don't!" She cried, suddenly furious. "What? You think that just because you sat next to me on my bed last night and gave me all this bullshit about my Dad that suddenly you know everything about me? Well you're wrong! I'm not a child-"

"I know you're not a child," Gendry said quickly. "I just... I care about you..."

Arya bit her lip, feeling an unexpected stinging in her eyes.

"Don't lie to me," she said, her voice quivering. "All right?"

With that she brushed past him and stormed up the stairs, ignoring the looks all the Tyrells were giving her as she passed them. Slamming her door shut, Arya fell into bed and then turned on the TV, turning up the volume when Gendry came knocking at her door. She was just tired. She was tired of him and she didn't want to hear excuses.

'_Maybe I'm acting childish,' _she thought to herself, '_but I think I'm damned entitled to act a bit childish.'_

An hour or so passed, and Margaery came by, knocking too, but she ignored her. At one point or another, someone came and said they had brought food, and when Arya was sure the coast was clear, she went and got her tray and ate in front of the television. It was nice, she decided, to be alone. She hadn't been alone just spending time with herself since her father had died, but this was a different kind of alone. A peaceful kind of alone. The kind of alone where she could detach her mind from her body completely and let herself drift.

The sun set and the light from the television splashed against the walls. Arya felt a subtle ache in her side, and even though it was early she felt herself nodding off again. She didn't want to sleep, and she tried to stay awake, gripping at the sheets, but her eyes kept slowly drifting closed, and before she could do anything...

Arya was walking down the hallway again, and there were muffled voices, and the door with the crack of light, and she could feel herself starting to sense the inevitable panic that always set in. She started walking faster, but then it was as if the door was running away from her, and every step forward was a step back, and she started to claw at the walls to stop them from slipping away, but all her fingers did was slip against the wallpaper, and then rip as they transformed in her panic, ripping into the wood. She tried to scream, but nothing came out, and she knew, she just knew something bad was going to-

Out of no where an arm reached out and grabbed her roughly. She spun around, her clawed hand reaching out to strike-

"Come on," Gendry said softly, his hand gently curved around her wrist. "You don't want to see this."

She gave a shuttering gasp for breath, her entire body shaking, and then her hand shrank back to a human hand. She felt her eyes pop open in shock. That had never happened before. When she was in the process of phasing, she could never just stop until she had fully transformed, and then phasing back was always extremely difficult. She looked up at him incredulously, and nearly toppled backwards at the look he was giving her.

"What's going on?" She heard herself demand, her face heating up at the intensity of his gaze. "This isn't supposed to be happening."

"There's nothing you could have done," he told her gently, and suddenly she realized they weren't in the hallway anymore, but back in her room. Things were getting stranger and stranger.

"Go away," she snapped. "This isn't supposed to be happening."

She tried to pull away, and her wrist slipped from his grip, but she felt his fingers close onto her elbow softly, and he looked at her eyes and straight at her, and she felt her heart jump into her throat and beat there, very fast and furious. Her brain whirled in confusion. This wasn't supposed to be happening... He wasn't supposed to be-

He leaned down and kissed her. Right on the mouth. Arya would have screamed, were it not for his mouth on hers... And were it not for the fact that it was nice. Kissing him, of all people, was nice, and against her will she felt her arms reach up and her weight shift to her tip toes. He drew her close to him, and that was when she pulled away.

"What are you doing?" She asked breathlessly, and the fact that his fingers were trailing patterns on her bare arms wasn't helping stop the thoughts running around in her head.

Instead of answering, he drew his fingers lightly against her arm and up to her chin, taking it between his fingers and running his hand along her jaw. '_Well this is different,' _Arya thought, and then he leaned in and kissed her again, this time deeper and hungrier. She didn't know what to do, or rather she did, but her body didn't, because it was allowing her hands to thread through his hair, which was clearly very against the program her mind had laid out, which was the back away and yell at him.

She felt his weight pressing against her, and she toppled back against the bed, that had very conveniently appeared out of no where. Somehow, Arya didn't seem to mind. As she felt his tongue slide against her lips, she wondered how she was even letting this happen. Something in the back of her mind told her to throw him off, but it was all happening to fast, and he was everywhere and no where at the same time, in the only way someone could be in a dream.

His hands were stroking her face and her hair, and she could feel his heart beating again, pulsing under her fingers as they pressed against the fabric of his shirt. Her heart was beating very quickly too. Too quickly.

He reached down and she felt his hand hot against the skin of her stomach.

"No," she said quickly, her heart beating faster and faster and the heat of his hand spreading across her body like acid. "Don't-"

"Why?" He asked. "You know you want to."

He leaned down and kissed her neck, and she felt it, the rush before the change, and she tried to push him off her, because she was phasing, her hands stretching out, claws ripping through the skin...

"Stop," she tried to stay. "Please."

'_I won't be able to stop myself,' _she thought in a panic. '_He doesn't know. He doesn't know...' _The beating of his heart sounded delicious, and without warning all her humanity left her and she sank her teeth into his chest and ripped his heart out.

Arya screamed, leaping up in bed, her entire body shaking, the taste of his blood still in her mouth and her hands shaking violently. Just a dream... Just a dream... But this was one nightmare where she wasn't running from monsters. She was one.

**I know Arya's behavior is a bit annoying, but she has been through a lot. Think about it, if you had just witnessed your Dad's brutal murder and gotten shot with an arrow, you wouldn't be so happy either. Here's just a note to say that things get better.**


	11. All caught up

Gendry awoke the next morning feeling like he hadn't slept in ages. He had dreamed that Arya chased him around, shooting arrows at his head and screaming, "YOU SHOT ME WITH AN ARROW SO I'LL SHOOT YOU BACK!" It was nice to wake up and remember he didn't have to live in mortal terror. Well, at least not for the present. There was that whole vampire thing to consider, and he really wasn't too fond of considering it.

As he made his way down to breakfast, he saw that everyone was already sitting down. It was Margaery and Olenna's last day at Highgarden before they headed out to begin the plan, and so everyone had decided that it would be nice to eat breakfast together, rather than in separate periods. Feeling guilty at being late, Gendry slid into the last available seat. The one next to Arya.

She didn't even make eye contact with him, but stared at her ham like it was the most absorbing thing in the world. '_Brilliant,' _Gendry thought, annoyed, as he reached for a bit of toast. He was really getting sick of her attitude.

"Potatoes?" Margaery asked, offering Gendry a tray of delicious looking potatoes. He practically yanked it out of her hands.

"Thanks," he said, piling a healthy portion onto his plate, and then he looked over at Arya. "Arya? Potatoes?"

She didn't look at him but ate her last piece of ham, her face beet red. Gendry had had enough.

"Come on Arya," he said with a snap as she reached out and took a sip of her juice, "you know you want to."

Arya choked and spit all her juice out of her mouth in a terrific spray, causing Renly and Loras to scream and jump backwards in order to avoid getting wet. There was a moment of tumultuous, thundering silence as everyone stared at Arya, who looked utterly humiliated and horrified.

"Well that was an unexpected reaction," Hot Pie said, his eyes docile as he took a sip of his water.

Gendry didn't know what to say, he just stared.

"Sorry," Arya said, her face purple. "I think I inhaled while drinking my juice. I would love potatoes. How very thoughtful of you."

She took the potatoes from Gendry and helped herself to some. Everyone looked at each other awkwardly.

"Well," Margaery said, "I can't really blame you Arya. I hate Minute Maid orange juice as well."

The Tyrells barked with laughter, and then went back to eating, all cracking jokes about the weather being 'cloudy with a chance of rain,' and how they should have brought an umbrella to breakfast, but Gendry wasn't convinced, and when Arya practically sprinted from the table after the meal was over, he knew something was up. He was sure of it when everyone got up to say goodbye and Arya was very eager to put as much space between her and Gendry as possible. Fed up, Gendry made to follow her, but to his surprise, Hot Pie grabbed his arm.

"There's definitely something going on with her," Hot Pie said seriously, "look at what she was just reading before you came in."

Hot Pie shoved a thick book into Gendry's hands, looking grim. Gendry frowned and looked down at the title. _The Female Werewolf, _it read. He didn't know why Hot Pie looked so concerned. This was better than gold.

"What's so bad about this?" Gendry asked. "This is great. I should have been reading this all along and then maybe I can stop pissing her off... Or figure out a way to get her to stop pissing me off..."

"No," Hot Pie said, "if you look at the corner of the pages, one of them is wrinkled and still damp from the sweat of her hand."

"Okay... That's a little disgusting..."

"Shut up this is serious," Hot Pie grunted, pouting and then wrenching open the book. "If you had let me _finish_, I was _going to say_ that from that we can tell that this was the page she was reading. It's bad man. I'd be afraid."

"Why?" Gendry asked, taking the book back. "What's so... Bad..."

His voice trailed off as his eyes took in the title of the chapter. _The Female Werewolf and Mating. _Oh. Hot Pie was right. This _was_ very uncomfortable. Suddenly, Gendry felt like he had committed some sort of crime, like he was reading her diary or something. He shut the book hastily, trying to look indifferent.

"Dude," Hot Pie said, "you know what this means." "No I don't," Gendry snapped, "so she was reading… Stuff. I read stuff... Some times." "Yeah but not this stuff," Hot Pie whispered seriously. "Dude, you know. You know what this means."

"No I don't," Gendry said curtly, having a feeling he didn't want to know. "What does this mean?"

"Well... If she's thinking just now about... Well you know what," Hot Pie said in a hushed voice, "than she's thinking about well, someone here... And it ain't me. It isn't Loras or Renly either, and Willas is too old..."

Gendry looked at Hot Pie like he had gone soft.

"It isn't me!" He said, feeling his cheeks go white hot. "No way! I'm... I shot her with an arrow for Christ's sake! She hates me!"

"Face the facts buddy," Hot Pie said apologetically, "there's no way it couldn't be you."

Gendry didn't want to, but... The facts seemed to be facing _him_. Suddenly, everything made sense. Her hostility, the constant blushing, the way she looked at him like... Like a girl trying to hide a crush.

"You're wrong," Gendry said, shaking his head, and he stormed out of the room, leaving Hot Pie to stand there, shouting after him something that sounding vaguely familiar to, "you're just afraid to face the truth!"

But no way. No way could that be the truth, right? He was way too old! What was she, seventeen? No, obviously Hot Pie was just jumping to conclusions. He did that a lot too. There was that one time he was convinced that Gendry was having sex with their algebra teacher back in high school (as if Gendry would have touched that with a twenty foot pole. He wasn't stupid, or about to get kicked out of school), and as a result had become so obsessed with catching them in the act that he had spent a whole night in the dumpster outside the math room with a video camera. This was just like that. Pissing in the wind.

The Tyrells were all gathered outside, with Arya, saying their final goodbyes. There seemed to be a silent, mutual agreement that it would be a very informal affair. No one wanted to make it emotional, especially Olenna. Still, Margaery hugged her brothers, and gave both Gendry and Arya a smile as everyone wished her luck. Within a few minutes, they were in the car and driving away. "Well here goes nothing," Loras said with a sigh. "There's no turning back now, is there?"

"All we can do is hope that it goes well," Renly said gravely, and they both turned back towards the house.

Arya made to follow them. "Not so fast," Willas said, stepping in front of her and stopping her. "I've got plans for you two."

"Plans?" Gendry asked, frowning. "What kind of plans?"

Willas smiled.

oooooooOOOOOOOoooooooo

"You've got to be kidding me," Arya said, her arms crossed over her chest. She looked far from pleased.

"You were the one who wanted to rescue your sister," Willas pointed out. "So, technically, you signed up for this."

He had a point. Though Gendry was just as thrilled as Arya about this... Going into the whole mission blind was a disastrous idea. And he _had_ insisted on joining Arya to help save her sister. So he remained quiet. Unhappy, but quiet. That was more than Arya.

"An obstacle course?" She sneered with disgust.

"Not just any obstacle course," Willas snapped, starting to get irked with their lack of excitement. "I need to assess your skill level when it comes to tracking, and how well you two react in high stress situations. There is no 'I' in team, and that's what you two are. A team."

It was going to be hard to be a team when Arya was scowling at him. Gendry scowled back. It wasn't his fault she had a stupid crush on him. Not that she did have a crush. That was all Hot Pie. Damn Hot Pie. "What's going to happen," Willas continued, "is that there is a bag hidden in the middle of this woods. Say the bag is Sansa. You've got to find the bag, while still facing an array of booby traps. I know it's a bit more than what will happen when you actually go back to King's Landing, but it's all practice. This will make sure your both prepared for anything that might happen."

"Brilliant," Arya said with a sigh. "Do we get any weapons?"

"Yes," Willas snapped, handing Arya a knife and Gendry a crossbow. "Try not to kill each other."

He stalked off, leaving Gendry and Arya alone. As soon as he was out of sight, Arya took off walking. Gendry guessed this meant that she wanted to find the sack and get out of there as quickly as possible. That was fine by him.

They walked for hours. For the first half an hour, Gendry was crossbow at the ready, waiting for something, _anything_, to jump out at them... But nothing happened. The woods was peaceful, and as he and Arya trekked through the woods, Arya far more quiet than he was. More than once he received a withering glare from her as his foot snapped a twig. He could feel his annoyance with her mounting. "I think it's this way," he finally spoke up. "I recognize this tree."

"Oh do you?" Arya snapped sarcastically. She ignored him and kept walking.

"Hey!" Gendry barked, feeling himself dangerously close to losing his temper. "Are you even going to listen to my opinion? You heard Willas. No 'I' in team?" "No," she said with a snap, not even turning around.

Something inside Gendry snapped.

"Look!" He shouted. "It's not my fault you have a crush on me, so why don't you just get over whatever it is you're feeling-"

"Excuse me?" Arya roared, whipping around. "I do NOT have a crush on you!"

"Oh really?" Gendry shouted back. "Because I saw what you were reading, and I have to say, it explains a lot about your behavior!"

"How dare you?" She shrieked. "You egotistical prat! This is so like you!"

"So like me?" Gendry sputtered in indignation. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You think everything is all about you!" Arya shouted. "You think you're so great-"

"What the fuck?" Gendry said. "No I don't. Where are you even getting all this?"

"You know what?" Arya snarled. "Just shut up. Let's just get the god damn bag."

"Oh as my lady commands," Gendry growled back with a mock bow.

Something in her eyes flashed, and she threw down her weapon and pushed him backwards, hard. Gendry felt something snap against the back of his ankle... Suddenly, without warning, rope was snapping around him, and Arya was falling on top of him, screaming, and his body was being yanked upwards, tangling and then snapping to a stop. _'What the...?'_ Gendrys fingers found rope, and it took him about two seconds to realize that he had set off a net. They were both trapped.

Arya looked livid.

"I AM LITERALLY-"

"Arya I'm really-"

"-GOING-"

"-sorry I didn't mean-"

"- TO KILL YOU!"

"Well, well, well," Willas said, strolling towards them as easy as you please and looking up at them with a mingled look of utter amusement and slight annoyance. "What a surprise. It appears you two are... Uhh... All caught up."

"Come a little closer and say that," Arya snarled darkly, but she wasn't very convincing as her arm stuck out of the net like a useless tree branch as she waved it in what was supposed to have been a menacing gesture.

"I'm terrified," Willas said drily. "But to say it in one word, you failed. You didn't even make it past the first obstacle."

"I don't think that was one word," Gendry grumbled, Arya's knee pressing uncomfortably into his armpit. Willas didn't seem to have heard him.

"I told you time and time again Arya, there is no 'I' in team," he said, and Gendry understood why Arya snarled because his tone was very condescending. "You two were more concerned with having the last word than actually completing the task at hand. There for, I'm not going to cut you down."

"YOU'RE NOT?" Arya shrieked in outrage.

"I sincerely hope this is a joke," Gendry sighed. Seeing as the day had been going for him... He suspected not.

"No it's not," Willas said. "Clearly you two have some issues that none of us were aware of, and if you're going to work as a team, well than everything needs to be out in the open. There are no secrets in teams, and it would be worse for not only you, but everyone if, come game day, something like this goes awry."

"So what are we supposed to do?" Arya demanded angrily. "Just hang here?"

"If that's what you want," Willas said with a shrug. "It makes no difference to me. I, for one, am going back to Highgarden, making myself a plate with pita bread, homemade humus and olives and get back to my recording of _Doctor Zhivago._"

"You can't do that!" Arya cried. "These woods could be dangerous!"

Willas raised an eyebrow.

"Yes," he said, "you're right. I hear there are wolves in this forest."

The net swung violently as Arya struggled against it, her fists shaking madly, obscene gestures and words bursting from her. Willas was completely unfazed and unmoved. He checked his watch, did a little salute to them, and then waltzed off, whistling to himself.

There was a moment of silence as they watched him go, Gendry feeling a great sense of remorse. Arya was still shaking with anger.

"I think we really pissed him off," Gendry said with a sigh as the rope creaked and groaned. Arya didn't respond.

Gendry sighed. He was thoroughly uncomfortable, but more than physically. Trapped with Arya, in a net, with her very close to his body, was the last thing he wanted. Especially with their far-less-than-comfortable argument they had just had. And while he was embarrassed, he couldn't imagine what Arya was feeling. But really... He was just shocked. A crush? On him? But why?

"I wasn't thinking about you," she said, speaking up unexpectedly, not looking at him but gazing at the woods fading in the dusk light of the setting sun. "With the book, I mean. It was just something I was reading, all right? I think it's sort of important to know all I can about how werewolves... You know work."

"Oh," Gendry coughed awkwardly. "Yeah, right, of course. I used to read all sorts of stuff like that... You know... Erm... The mating thing and all that..."

"Not that, you twat," Arya groaned, rolling her eyes, but her cheeks turned pink and Gendry had a sneaking suspicion that she was lying. It mattered not. She was trying to make it less uncomfortable for the both of them, and he was more than willing to jump on it. "Just about everything. Like what triggers phasing, and how I can control it before I-"

"Lose your shit and attack me in the night?" Gendry finished for her. She rolled her eyes again, but this time it was more in begrudging agreement.

"In my defense you were the one who snuck in at mid night, I might add," she said, picking at the rope.

"Yeah well, I was concerned," Gendry snapped, but she looked up, and he was surprised by the flash of hurt that sparked across her face. She didn't speak for a long time.

"I'm..." Her voice was slightly wavering, and she was picking at a fray her her jeans, cheeks hot, "I'm sorry for... For being such a bitch to you. I... I umm..."

It was really difficult for her, wasn't it? To apologize. But it was more than that. Maybe it was easier, Gendry thought, for her to be constantly mad at him. To not let anyone else in. To keep up this great bristling wall and block everyone else out from the beating heart within.

"It's okay," he said as she struggled for words. "I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have accused you, you know, of having... Of having an, err... Crush on me. I listened to Hot Pie, which is always a mistake."

"Clearly," she said, but she laughed. A small laugh. "Willas is right. We need to get our shit together if this is going to work."

"Deal," Gendry said with a nod. There was another pause.

"And we need to get out of here," Arya said with a grunt, "you're crushing my leg."

"Oh," Gendry said, feeling bad. "Sorry."

"So..." Arya said looking around. "How are we going to do this exactly? We don't have anything to cut the rope with..."

"Sure we do," Gendry said. "Your talons should do the trick."

"Talons?" Arya said. "Are you serious? CLAWS."

"Semantics," Gendry said with a shrug, feeling a vague sense of deja vu. "Claws then. Just bust them out, rip the rope and then we're good to go."

She looked annoyed.

"It doesn't work like that," she snapped. "I can't... Phase just one part of my body. When I phase, it's... Well you know. It's a whole lot of ripped clothes and saliva."

"Oh," Gendry hadn't known that. Maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe that's why she was reading that book. He really was an ass. "Maybe... Maybe if I tried to help you crawl out? And then you could get the knife and cut me down?"

"It's worth a shot," she relented with a shrug. "I really don't fancy spending the night in this net."

"Good," Gendry said with a sigh of relief, trying to shift around so that she could get her leg out from under his butt. He succeeded only in rolling back onto her leg and crushing it further.

"Okay," Arya said with a huff as they struggled, "on the count of three, you'll roll that way and grab onto the net, and I'll remove my leg as quickly as possible."

"Good," Gendry grunted. "One... Two... Three."

He wasn't very successful again, but it was a good thing that Arya was quick. When he rolled back, her leg was gone, now digging into his stomach. She grimaced apologetically.

"Sorry about stepping on you," she said as she turned, grabbing the net and looking determinedly up at the opening of tangled ropes.

"No-OUF FUCKING HELL!-problem," Gendry wheezed as she used his chest as a pushing off point, the heel of her shoe digging painfully as she gripped the ropes, climbing. The net swayed violently, and she hung on for dear life. "SORRY!" She shouted, but she was making small progress, her legs and arms wobbling spastically as she struggled towards the top. Gendry watched her, getting seasick as the net swayed. She reached the top, and attempted to swing her leg over, only to have her toe hook with one of the ropes. But it was too late. Gravity pulled her, and when her footcaught, it sent her swinging, and then crashing to the ground.

"Are you okay?" Gendry shouted down.

"Brilliant," she grumbled, standing up and brushing all the dirt off herself. "I really am going to kill Willas."

And with that, she marched over to where their weapons were, got the knife, and cut him down.


	12. Just a Phase

**All apologies for how long this chapter took. Things have just been insanely busy with no time to write! Since my college apps are over, I'll be updating on a much more regular basis =)**

"Stop smirking."

"What? I'm not smirking, this is just my face!"

"Yeah right and-"

"Hem hem!" Willas coughed loudly, crunching his fresh biscotti in his teeth irritably without dipping it in his tea first and looking like he regretted it. He glared at both of them as if they had insulted him.

"As I was saying," he said warily, "today we start hand-to-hand combat training."

"Awww no," Hot Pie grumbled. "I hate fighting. It makes my hands sweaty."

"Not you," Willas snapped. "You are not going anywhere away from this house until everything is settled."

"Sweet," said Hot Pie, utterly unfazed. "So can I just sit and watch then?"

"Yes," Willas sighed. "Whatever you like."

Hot Pie grinned and looked at Gendry with an annoying amount of amusement spreading across his face.

"Shut up," Gendry snarled.

"I'm going to get the popcorn ready," Hot Pie said gleefully. "This is going to be better than watching the Hulk."

"Shut up!" Gendry shouted after him as he trotted merrily away across the lawn. Arya couldn't hold back her laughter. "I am _not _going to get my ass kicked!"

"Could we move on?" Willas asked. "I've been trying to get this started for a half an hour."

"Sorry," both Arya and Gendry said at the same time, but Arya was still smirking.

"As I was trying to say," Willas continued. "We are beginning hand-to-hand combat training, and then moving on to basic skills you will need."

"Like what?" Gendry asked.

"Archery, for one," Willas said. "And then maybe some light fencing just to cover all the basics."

"Brilliant," Arya said with a real grin. "I love fencing and archery."

"Of course you do," Gendry said with a grumble. He was never good at being light on his feet or steady of hand and he could only imagine how good she was at it, werewolf senses and all. He tried not to pout too feverishly. He did not want to give her the satisfaction.

"Good," Willas said. "Then you can help Gendry. Lord knows he needs help."

"Oh thanks a lot."

"So first," Willas said loudly, ploughing forward, "we'll just start off with basic, no-form fighting and see where that gets us, and what I have to work with this week before we send you off to Kings Landing."

Gendry caught Arya's eye.

"Don't worry," Gendry said seriously to her. "I'll go easy on you."

Arya barked with such loud, unflattering laughter that even Willas looked amused, standing off to the side and shaking his head. Gendry scowled, but she only laughed harder. _Fine. Then I'll hold nothing back._

"The rules are this," Willas said, clearing his throat. "No... Err permanent damage, and I'd prefer no broken bones either."

Arya seemed to find that annoying. Well it was all fine for her, wasn't it? She could repair a broken bone in a second, but... Well Gendry was no werewolf and he wasn't in the mood to have his arm bone cracked in half, thank-you-very-much.

"I mean it," Willas said firmly. "And no werewolf power tricks either. Your goal is to pin the other to the ground for three seconds, nothing more. I don't want a repeat of the net incident."

Both Arya and Gendry shifted in embarrassment.

"On my count," Willas said, flicking out a pocket watch. Both Arya and Gendry took steps away from each other, and then turned, facing each other. Gendry felt adrenaline rush through his veins. "One... Two... Th-"

Arya didn't wait for him to finish. One second she was standing, half crouched, and then next she had slammed into him, sending all the air shooting out of Gendry's lungs as his body slapped against the ground. She grabbed at his wrists, her grip like iron, but Gendry was strong. He had always been strong, and he was not about to let all that bench pressing go to waste at this crucial juncture.

"I said on my count!" Willas shouted, irked, as Gendry automatically brought up his knee and hit her in the stomach, catapulting her off him.

"Like Cersei's going to wait until we're ready!" Arya shouted back, scrambling towards Gendry and pouncing. He rolled out of the way just in time and tried to get to his feet, but she yanked his arm back down and then punched him in the face with such extreme force that he toppled backwards like a doll.

Dizzy, Gendry lumbered back up and swung blinding at Arya, hitting her in the shoulder. She gave a yelp, but not much else, and then punched him in the face again.

"Block... Block..." Willas chirped up weakly, but it was no use. Arya was quick and strong, and even though Gendry was too, she obviously had a very good idea of what she was doing and he did not.

He saw her fist in the air again and managed to roll away just in time. There was a crackling of bone as her wrist broke against the ground and she let out a scream of pain, snapping it back together and through the haze of his swollen eye, Gendry could see her glaring at him. Her eyes were sparking ice.

"Arya-"

She leapt at him again, and again he rolled away, this time out of panic. She was losing control, he could tell. Getting_ too_ into the fight.

"Arya!"

She grabbed him and pinned him down breathing with shaking, shuttering and horrible gasps, her entire body convulsing. She was going to transform... Her heart rate was up too fast... Gendry could see the panic in her eyes...

"Calm down," he said quickly, grabbing her face between his hands and staring at her straight in her changing eyes. "Arya breathe. Focus."

"I can't," she choked out, her hands digging themselves into his shirt, scraping at his skin. "Get away from me!"

Gendry took a deep breath, looking at her purposefully, as if to say _come on, breathe with me._ Gently, he ran his thumbs soothingly over her face as he took another deep breath and another. _Come on Arya. _

Her eyes were clouding over, and her fingers were twitching against him... But then suddenly they weren't. They were normal, terrified gray, and her hands began to tremble, not twitch, her breathing still shaky, but a different kind of shaky. Relief.

"Stay still!" Willas shouted, and they looked up to see that he had noticed it all, and was running back from the house as fast as he could with his leg, a gun in his hands. He stopped short when he saw Arya fall back against Gendry, exhausted and normal. Dazed and his head hurting like a bitch, Gendry managed to pull his arms up and embrace her, rubbing her back soothingly.

"Well, I'll be damned," Willas said in obvious relief. "I thought I'd have to shoot her with a tranquilizer. What happened?"

"It was Gendry," Arya gasped, but she looked like she couldn't say anything else. Her face was as white as sleet and the blood had drained from it, giving her skin an ashen quality. She was sweating feverishly too.

"You need to get her inside," Gendry said thickly, his head swimming.

"Well this appears to be one of my worser ideas," Willas grumbled to himself as he bent down to help Arya to her feet. "An utter disaster."

Hot Pie had come out onto the green as well, apparently having seen the whole thing, and came to help Gendry to his feet, a process which proved difficult because Gendry was at least two times his size.

It was to Hot Pie's credit that he didn't say anything as he helped Gendry back to the house and Gendry was grateful. He didn't even know if he could talk. He would never admit it to Arya, but he had been terrified, and he was really shaken up. If she had phased... Lost control... Well they'd be wheeling him to a hospital, wouldn't they?

Hot Pie helped him up to his room, and Gendry collapsed, exhausted, onto his bed. Hot Pie asked him something, but he was too tired to even answer and, utterly spent, he closed his swollen eyes and decided to take a much needed nap.

Cold bit at his right eye and Gendry gave a start. He tried to open his eyes, but only his left would do so. It appeared his right was swollen shut. When he did open his eye, he blinked rapidly. The room was dark, and he was thrown into a mass of confusion.

"Stay still," said a voice, and then the cold was lifted, and his eye burned with pain, but only for a moment, because the cold was placed back on it again, gently.

"Arya," his voice was cracked and his lip had been split. He could tell because it was pulled tight and dry with cracked blood.

"Willas feels awful," Arya said gently, her shape just a dark shadow in the room as his eye adjusted to the change of light. "But it's not his fault. I... I was the one that lost control."

Gendry didn't say anything as she held the ice pack to his face, but as he could make out the shapes of her cheeks and nose and eyes, he could see that she was doing much, much better. Her ragged hair was pulled away from her shoulders in a messy bun and she smiled sadly at him in the dark.

"No need to apologize," Gendry rasped out. "Except maybe for completely shitting all over my face. I probably look like some sort of cave dwelling troll right now."

Arya laughed.

"Thankfully, I'm pretty sure those don't actually exist," she informed him, putting the ice on his chin, which was throbbing as well. "But I don't know about your face... It might even be an improvement."

"Ouch," Gendry groaned as she chuckled. It hurt to laugh.

"But don't worry," Arya said. "Willas promised to do his magic, pun intended, and get you into top form."

"Good," Gendry wheezed. "Because I feel like shit."

"Yeah we're going for a change of plans," Arya sighed, returning the ice to his eye. "We'll be practicing with weapons, and doing calculated fight moves. Ones that don't involve... Excessive physical action. But lots of control."

A gaping silence forged itself between them as Arya pressed the ice to Gendry's face, not meeting his eyes. She took a deep breath.

"I'm... Ummm…I'm sorry," Arya said awkwardly. "About almost... Almost losing control."

Even in the dark, Gendry could see the humiliation on her face.

"S'all right," he said with a comforting pat. "You didn't, and that's what's important."

"Yeah but I should have," she snapped. "I should have lost control. When I start phasing... You don't get it. I can't stop. But I did... You... You got me to stop."

She gave him a look that was almost shy. _She's in my debt, _Gendry suddenly realized. _I saved the situation, and she feels like she owes me... Well not owes me... But she's... Well she's grateful isn't she?_

"How?" She blurted out.

Oh. Well... He didn't know, did he? It was just... Impulse.

"I dunno," he grunted, coughing. "I just sort of... Went with it."

She was blushing even harder now.

"It's just... That's never happened to me before," she admitted. "Usually when I phase, I phase. There's no going back."

"You just need to calm down," Gendry said stupidly. "Doesn't phasing have to do with heart rate or something?"

"It has to do with a lot of things," she said with a shrug that made it very clear that she didn't want to talk about it anymore. Again, there was silence.

"Oh!" She said, as if coming to her senses. "I almost forgot. This is for you."

She removed her hand not holding the ice from his, and Gendry frowned. He hadn't even realized he'd been holding it. He watched as she got something out, a jar of some sort, and took the lid off. It smelled disgusting.

"For you face," she said, grimacing as she dipped her fingers in the stuff and then, before Gendry could protest, she smeared it on his face. It stung and made his eyes water and smelled. It smelled _disgusting._

"Yaaaaeekk," Gendry gargled out in protest and she laughed.

"It's part of Willas's magic," she snapped, swatting his hands away as he tried to wave her off. "So you won't be looking like a cave-dwelling troll."

He scowled and she laughed again.

"Feel better?"

It did, actually. Shitloads better. But he wasn't about to give her the smug satisfaction. He merely shifted in his bed and shrugged. She saw right through him and grinned a very smug and satisfied grin.

"Shut it you," he grumbled. "It's your own damn fault. Who knew you had such a good right hook?"

"I did," she said, biting her lip. A strand of hair had fallen in her face and she tucked it behind her ear. "And you were so confident too... Poor thing..."

"Shut it!" Gendry snapped again and she guffawed. "You're insufferable you are!"

"Oh save it for tomorrow," Arya said, not phased in the least. "When we start archery."

"Oh god," Gendry groaned and as he rolled his eyes he could see her grinning, the little shit. He was caught, in that moment, how well... How she could be such a normal... A normal person. How easy it was to forget what she really was. But then again, wasn't she just normal at the core? Besides the whole, wanting to rip his heart out when she got angry thing.

"Also take this," she said, a cup of something appearing in her hand. Without even asking her hand slunk itself under his head and cupped it, bringing it up. He hadn't realized how heavy his head felt until now. Like a giant bowling ball.

"Uhh what's that?" He demanded as she brought the cup to his lips.

"To help you sleep," she said with a shrug. "Takes the pain away."

"Well in that case, bottoms up," Gendry said, and she tipped the cup so he could take a giant swig. Half of the stuff had escaped down his throat before he spewed it out of his mouth. And in Arya's face. That was unfortunate.

"Oh crap you idiot!" She bellowed.

"That stuff is shit!" Gendry bellowed right back. "Willas has got to learn how to cookush stush properlush. Proper-Properlush..."

His throat was burning warm, the sensation spreading throughout his entire body. He flopped back on the bed, his eyes fluttering closed, sleeping gripping at him as he struggled to make sense... But he was so effing tired.

"Sleep tight," he heard Arya say in a dream, and then she leaned down and kissed his cheek lightly, and the place where he lips touched his skin exploded in a fog of stars.

oooooooOOOOooooooo

"Nice shiner. Did you get that from a big guy? I bet you did. I bet he was three times your size-"

"Shut up or I'll give you one too," Gendry grumbled, yawning and stretching, rubbing his hair against his head. He had to admit though, Willas' magic stuff worked. His face felt fine, though he had wished that Arya had applied the goop to his chest and arms. They were still bruised and hurt like the blazes.

"Feeling better?" Arya asked, innocently sipping her tea.

"Yeah my face feels great," Gendry said, touching his side tenderly. "But I wish you had put some of that stuff on my chest and back. I've got a bruise the size of a football there."

There was an uncomfortable silence from both Hot Pie and Arya. Arya's cheeks were red, and Hot Pie looked amused.

"What?" Gendry asked.

"Umm that's sexual," Hot Pie said.

"No it's not," Gendry snapped.

"Yeah it is. 'Oh rub that oil on my back and chest yeah, nice and good.' That doesn't sound sexual to you?"

"That is NOT how I said that," Gendry protested, snagging some toast. "Or how I meant it. Obviously."

"I'm just saying it sounded sexual." Hot Pie said with a shrug.

"Well that's bullocks," Gendry snarled. "Right Arya?"

"Mhmmm," she said, absorbed with her tea, but she didn't meet his eyes. Gendry sighed and sat down with a 'thump.' His backside instantly regretted it.

"Children," he muttered, glaring at them both. For some reason, this made Arya color even more.

After they finished breakfast, Arya and Gendry trooped out silently to the back lawn while Hot Pie went to dig into that book he was so fascinated with. The walk with Arya was awkward, and her cheeks were bright pink which had nothing to do with the cold. Gendry noticed that she had braided her hair, which was usually long and tangled quite nicely. He felt bad for being so sour.

Willas had set up two targets and two stations for both of them. There were bows, and arrows. Gendry felt his mood worsen. He hated archery.

Arya obviously felt very differently. In a flash, she was putting on her gloves, strapping them on and then running her hands against the arrows, letting them roll off the tips of her fingers like wheat. She shared a secret smile with herself, and Gendry felt his mood lighten slightly.

"We used to do this all time at home," she said, "my brothers and I. It helped... To calm me down. The concentration. The precision."

She took out an arrow, set it in the bow, and then, focusing, and bringing her arm sliding back with a precise and fluid action, she aimed, and then fired. It hit just above the center and she cocked her head to the side and shrugged.

"I'm bound to be a bit rusty," she sighed as Gendry struggled with his gloves. If he couldn't even get the feckin gloves on...

"Here," she sighed, putting her bow back and going over to him. She took his hand in hers roughly (again without asking. Arya wasn't the kind of girl to ask. She just did), and strapped the glove in place. "There."

"Getting started I see?" Willas called as he crossed the lawn slowly, mug of tea in his hand. He looked like he was in a much better mood than the morning before. "Lovely."

Gendry knew that archery was the opposite of lovely, and when he attempted to pick up a bow, he was proven correct. He couldn't even get the bow and arrow together without them falling out of his hands. Willas and Arya shared a look but Gendry scowled at them enough for their silence.

Finally he got the damn bow and arrow together, and aimed, his arm trembling... The arrow shot right into the ground. Flimsy.

"You're doing it wrong."

"Oh thank you for that observation," Gendry snapped.

"Stop being so grumpy about it," Arya lectured, coming over to him. "It's not that you're not capable, it's just that you don't know anything."

He sighed.

"You need to learn," she said practically. "If you're up against Cersei, you're going to need everything you can get. Just... Try not to be so sullen."

"I'm not sullen," Gendry said, proving that he was. Arya smirked.

"Now hold the bow like this," she positioned his hands, "leave the arrow... Yes good... Now bring it up-SLOWLY!"

Her fingers dusted smoothly around his arms as he tried to raise the bow in the right position. He could feel her fingers molding around his elbow, tugging it back, and then lingering there as she moved around to position his other arm. Her eyes were focused sharply in concentration as she chewed her lip, adjusting his form, tilting the bow... Gendry felt his heart begin to pound hard when her fingers molded around his for no explainable reason. Maybe it was the archery that made him nervous.

"Make your hand like a claw," Arya said, adjusting his fingers.

"Oh so that's why this is so easy for you," Gendry joked and she rolled her eyes.

"All right," she said, ignoring him. "Here's the arrow."

She helped him place the arrow and aim, pulling his arm back taunt, hand in perfect form, eyes narrowed at the target-

"Hey!"

She had snatched the arrow back, and in his surprise he let his form fall.

"Do it," Arya said, handing him the arrow. "I showed you, now you have to recreate it all by yourself or you won't have learned anything."

"Fine," Gendry snapped, though he thought she might have let him at least shoot one good arrow, even if it wasn't on his own.

Shrugging off his annoyance and replacing it with determination, he tried to get back into form. He remembered her fingers on his elbow, pulling it back like clay, and he did it. _Tilt the bow slightly, _he thought. _Hand like a claw..._

He stood tall and straight, his eyes running along the length of the arrow, his finger holding it lightly against the wood of the bow as his eyes narrowed in on the target. Involuntarily, his eyes flicked to Arya and she took a deep breath. Turning his attention to the center of the target, Gendry did the same. He inhaled deeply, and then exhaled, releasing the bow.

_Thwack!_

It hit the corner of the target. Barely. But it hit the goddamn target.

The stupidest, biggest grin spread across Gendry's face. He turned to Arya, expecting to see her rolling her eyes with an '_it's so easy_' look on her face, but there wasn't. She was smiling too. For a second they grinned at each other like fools.

"Well done!" Willas said, clapping. "Now do it again until you hit the bull's eye."

Gendry groaned.

It would appear that victory, however sweet, would be short lived.

**Updates will now be more frequent, I SWEAR!**


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